


to grow a winter garden

by ragequilt



Series: what we choose to keep [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Demisexual Reader, F/M, Friends to Lovers, LOTS OF CONSENT, Pre-Relationship, Reader Insert, because i have no shame whatsoever apparently, demisexual author, half-awkward first time, i will earn this explicit rating by god, set in some nebulous timeline that definitely does not exist, sex in chapter five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:48:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23624122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragequilt/pseuds/ragequilt
Summary: Life as a scribe post-graduation at Oxenfurt Academy is a good one. When your old friend Jaskier comes looking for somewhere to spend the winter, you accept him with open arms and, unwittingly, an open heart.
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion & Original Character, Jaskier | Dandelion & Reader, eventual Jaskier | Dandelion / reader
Series: what we choose to keep [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738132
Comments: 20
Kudos: 99





	1. it is pure gold

**Author's Note:**

> due to personal reasons like my lack of forethought, the first three installments of this fic have been combined together in one actual multi-chapter work, so if you see something strange going on here, that's the what and the why!  
> welcome to your friends-to-lovers, ace!reader, jaskier/reader fic. all of this fic is written and in stages of being edited, and should be posted in its entirety soon.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last thing you are expecting is to find Jaskier at your door, looking for somewhere to stay for the winter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is entirely self-indulgent and i acknowledge that from the bottom of my heart.  
> i'm playing fast and loose with timelines and what time even means, really, because if i sit down and try to plot that out i'll never actually write what i want to, and that just makes me sad. will i research a thousand other things? yes. time? no.  
> chapter title from the poem "a friend" by gillian jones  
> 'do not expect to just take and hold  
> give friendship back, it is pure gold'

Oxenfurt is a wonderful city, and it has always been good to you. It was a matter of privilege that got you here in the first place — something you do your best to acknowledge — and even you have had some struggles. But you’re long-graduated now, working on-staff translating texts for the library or significant visitors, and you’re happy.  
  
You have your own quarters on campus in the residential wing, room and board covered under the contract with a monthly stipend for purchases. It’s better than living with your mother and father, and it’s better than living anywhere else — or so you imagine. You’re rarely disturbed, living personally up to the stereotype that scribes don’t get up to much.  
  
That doesn’t mean you don’t know how to unwind, though, and you’re curled up on the couch in front of the fire with a fine wine when there’s a knock at your door. You haven’t bothered to go request dinner, so it can’t be that, and you slip on your robe over your slip before going to the door. 

Finding Jaskier — finding _Julian_ — loitering in the hallway… It feels like every holiday come at once. You throw open the door before he can speak, and then you throw yourself at him, overcome with joy.  
  
He catches you with ease, arms tight around your back much like yours are on him, and he laughs against the side of your neck. “It’s good to see you too, darling,” he says, and you squeeze him tightly one more time before forcing yourself to let go. He lets you, and you take a half-step back to look at him in full.  
  
He’s wearing a fine blue outfit, embroidered in that detailed way that he’s always liked. His doublet is open at the neck, also the way he’s always liked. Jaskier has _always_ been a bit risque. There’s a lute across his back, over what you think is a traveling pack, and —  
  
A breeze comes down the hall and sweeps across your knees, reminding you of your state of undress. How improper of you; you glance both ways to see if anyone else has caught your indiscretion before backing up into your rooms. He follows, smiling as you hold the door open just to shut it tightly behind him, and you find yourself filled with a nervous and excited energy as you loiter there together just inside the door.  
  
There’s no sense in being a bad host, though, and you go to the couch to get the wine, go to get an extra glass. “Make yourself at home, won’t you?” you ask of him over your shoulder, and when you return to the couch he’s taken your words to heart. He’s looking at the book you’d been half-reading, curious like he’s always been about everything, but he puts it back when you hold the glass out to him. The bottle goes back onto the table and you go back into your comfortable seat, pulling your blanket over your lap again.  
  
“In case it wasn’t clear, I really am glad to see you,” you tell him, taking a drink. “What brings you back to the university?”  
  
“A man can’t return to his old stomping grounds every once in a while?” he asks, but he’s smiling through it. “My muse has gone north for the winter, and I was near enough to make it here before snow made travel more difficult,” he continues nonetheless. “And I have a few friends in the area that I thought might put me up for a time.”  
  
“You know the university would take you on as a professor,” you say, raising your eyebrows at him as he takes a drink. “But I guess you want to be able to leave again come the spring, hm?”  
  
“Well, yes, you do have me there,” he says, laughing in that nervous way you haven’t heard in years — and not just because you haven’t seen him since he graduated. “But if you would rather I go somewhere else, it’s no offense to me, of course. You were just —”   
  
You say “did I not just say I missed you?” as he says “—the first that came to mind.”  
  
“You’ve been traveling, haven’t you?” you ask, and he understands the words you aren’t saying, takes another drink. You mirror him, draining your glass, and you refill them both. This bottle will be empty soon, but it’s quenching the nervous feeling in your chest, so you don’t mind so much. “How has it been?”  
  
“Oh, very interesting,” he answers, but the distance in his voice, the bravado, falls away quickly. He’s never bothered to put on airs with you before, and you’re glad he’s not going to bother now. “I’ve been to all sorts of… towns, and swamps, and villages, and mountains, and —” he waves a hand, encompassing the world. “There is so much that words will not do justice to, out there.” You make a noise, interested, because Jaskier has always been a man very talented with words. “But I’ll tell you the stories of my travels some other time,” he says, bumps your shoulder with his. “How is life as a kept woman?”  
  
“You will find that the university does not keep me so much as I deign to stay,” you say, turning your nose up as a joke before you realize what he meant. “And Eryk and I did not stay together much past graduation.”  
  
He breathes a noise of interest through his nose, and you take another drink. “Whatever happened there?” If he were someone else, you would tell him to mind his own business. Of course, if he were someone else, he would already know. But Jaskier will forever be one of your closest friends, and there are very few secrets between you.  
  
“He wanted things I couldn’t give him,” you say, looking at the red swirl of your wine in the glass. “But instead of… talking about it, and saving either of us our dignity, he was… Indiscreet. I caught him leaving Zofia’s rooms, after he told me he couldn’t make it to our anniversary dinner because of a ‘meeting.’ I may have made a scene.”  
  
“I knew I taught you well,” Jaskier murmurs, and you can hear the smile in his voice. His shoulder is back, and this time it’s less a bump and more a long, warm press. He’s somehow hotter than the fire in the hearth, even through his doublet and your robe.

  
With the ice broken, now, conversation flows as if he’d never left at all.

Eventually, you tire. The fire is mostly embers, and you’ve yawned twice in the middle of a sentence now.   
  
“Looks like it’s time for nice young ladies to go to bed,” Jaskier says, plucking your empty glass from heavy fingers to put it on the table. With his help, you get to your feet — you’re more drunk than you thought, but it’d been easy to drink with him. It’s not like this is the first time he’s ever put you to bed.  
  
As he helps you into the other room, lowers you to sit on your mattress, you realize —   
  
“I don’t have a guest room,” you tell him, peering up at him through your lashes. Much like the rest of your body, your eyelids are heavy.  
  
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he says, sounding unbothered. “Much nicer than the forest floor, I can already tell.”  
  
You hum, filing that detail away where you might find it again later, and then — “or you can sleep in here, if you want,” you tell him. You pat the bed behind you with one unruly arm. It’s plenty large enough, and you aren’t afraid of him taking advantage. Jaskier is many things — any person is, you suppose — but he has always been trustworthy to you.  
  
“You don’t think that’s a bit improper?” he asks in the low light through the doorway, and you don’t bother to hold in an unladylike snort at his words.  
  
“As if you have ever been concerned with propriety, _Julian_ ,” you return, and he makes a wounded noise. His hands leave your shoulders — when had they been on your shoulders? — and he clutches his chest.  
  
“To call me by name after saying such things of my character,” he cries, and you nudge him with your foot. “But if you want, I will warm your bed, my lady.”  
  
“How have you gotten _more_ dramatic?” you ask him, entirely unseriously, but if he answers you don’t hear it as you lay back on the bed.   
  
He steps away as you relax back into your pillows underneath the blanket, doing — something, somewhere, in your quarters. You stop paying attention, already half-asleep.  
  
You wake up when he returns, just enough to notice him getting into bed. He’s dressed down into his chemise and smelling freshly scrubbed. How considerate, you distantly think, as you press yourself up against his back and nose your way to the nape of his neck. Except for the way he smells like your soap, this is just like it used to be.

Morning comes with birdsong, faint in the way it always gets as winter grows ever closer, and Jaskier is still in your bed. Your head is throbbing and your mouth is dry, but it is much easier to curl a little tighter against his side and press your cheek against his shoulder than it is to move.  
  
“Good morning to you, too,” he says when you rub your face against the soft fabric, and you make a disgruntled noise at the amusement in his voice.  
  
“Warm,” you tell him, not entirely with your faculties yet. It’s been a long time since you’ve been this close to anyone and, yes, he is very warm.  
  
“How are you feeling?” he asks, hand smoothing itself down your side like a surprise; you’ve only just noticed his arm at your back.  
  
“It’s too early,” you complain, turning your face further toward his neck to hide from the light in the window. He laughs lowly, curls his hand around your side.  
  
“Never thought I would see the day I was an earlier riser than you, my dear,” he says, half-whispering. You’re almost asleep again, soothed, and his words are sliding through your brain without sticking. “Go back to sleep, hm?”

When you wake again, your bed is empty. The blanket is pulled up to your shoulders, but the spot next to you is cool. Cozy as you are, it is time for you to get up, and you force yourself to sit up even though it makes your head throb.  
  
You take some time sitting on the edge of the bed before you go full to standing, thinking about your plans for the day, about where Jaskier might have gone. It’s just as you’re getting to your feet, fixing your slip and the robe you’d been too drunk to remove, that the man in question reappears. He’s wearing what looks like a sneaky face, but when he sees you it turns into a pleased smile. Something warm settles on your shoulder at the expression, and you find yourself mirroring him.  
  
“Good morning again,” he says, coming closer. He holds out a hand to you, which you take for no reason other than there’s no reason not to.  
  
“Good morning,” you agree, and you let him shepherd you to the table in the den. Your glasses from last night are gone, replaced by a plate of bread and cheese and fruit, and your stomach growls to see it. Your liquid dinner last night was not particularly fulfilling.  
  
“Come eat?” he offers, like this is his space and not yours, but it doesn’t bother you. You’d told him yesterday to make himself at home, and you meant it.  
  
“You have the best ideas,” you tell him as you sink into the couch cushions, and he laughs.  
  
Despite all things — his natural talkativeness and the way you sort of want to put words to how much you’ve truly missed him, because you didn’t stress it enough last night — breakfast is a mostly quiet affair. You eat without thinking about it, stuck on watching him instead. If he notices, he doesn’t remark, too busy — well, savoring the spread.  
  
“Have you been going hungry?” you ask him without thinking, ashamed of yourself as soon as you close your mouth. He’s been eating grapes like they are fine candy, like he hasn’t had one in years, and —  
  
He looks at you consideringly, chewing for a moment. “Mostly no, I would say.” He pulls another grape from the bunch and rolls it between finger and thumb. “But _good food_ is much harder to come by, on the road.”  
  
He’s not offended and you are too curious not to ask, so — “…what makes food _good_?” you ask him, and he hums while he chews, thinks.  
  
“Fruit is good,” he says after, licking the juice from his lips. You can’t stop watching him, too interested in what he has to say to try. Something feels different in the light of morning. “It’s not something you can take on the road; spoils too easily. Attracts bugs.” He gestures next to the bread, which is just — just bread. “Stale breads are cheaper to come by, keep easier too. I don’t know the last time I had a fresh loaf.” You frown, watching him talk with his hands. “It was still hot when I took the tray, you know,” he says then, like it’s a secret, and — you look away from him, down at your lap.  
  
He starts talking about how he’s had stew made of all kinds of wild animal, of how he learned which plants were safe and which weren’t, sometimes the hard way. You don’t zone out, and he doesn’t sound perturbed about it, but you find yourself feeling — supremely guilty, for lack of better term.  
  
You’ve been living in a comparable lap of luxury for the last several years, and you hadn’t even known it. You’ve had a place to sleep that is not the forest floor, you’ve had access to wine and to fruit and — Jaskier has apparently not had any of that. You’d assumed he’d gone to be someone’s kept bard in a court somewhere, not roughing it on the road. It feels terrible to know that you were wrong.  
  
When you look up again, he’s not talking about food anymore, but he doesn’t look upset that you’d stopped listening, either. Or maybe he didn’t notice. He’s a different man than the one you used to know, in so many ways, and you’re only seeing it now because you’re paying attention.  
  
You think hard, trying to find a safe topic. Something that won’t further stir your guilt and something that might be nice for him to talk about. You can’t imagine reliving being out in the wild is something he enjoyed. Or at least, not something the old him would enjoy.  
  
“What are your plans for the day?” you ask, wondering if he might want to join you for your shopping. Right now, you’d buy him the stars if he asked, if it meant it would untwist your guts.  
  
“Oh, I think I’ll go see some of the innkeepers in town, see if they have any use for a bard’s work this time of year,” he says, half-smiling at you. You don’t say it, and that guilt does stir, but — he will have a hard time of that, being so close to the university as the rest of the city is.  
  
“I plan to do some shopping, later, if you get done making your rounds and want to join me,” you tell him instead of saying anything else. There’s a still-warm crust of bread in the palm of your hand, and even though it feels like a stone to you, you eat it anyway. You won’t waste food in front of him. Not now.

Jaskier leaves while you’re getting ready, calling that he’ll see you later through the door. Your stomach is still a bit twisted, and you hope to yourself that he has good luck at the inns. It’s not a matter of pity, just a matter of — well, he deserves it. It sounds like it’s been a long time since something good has happened to him, though he does not wear it in his demeanor, and you want to rectify that immediately.  
  
Scrubbed down and dressed, you leave with little fanfare. On your way out of the residential wing, you stop to see the matron that oversees the services and the servants, requesting a bath for the evening. It’s not when you usually bathe, but it’s not for you, either. Some of your peers bathe every day, at the expense of the maids and others, but you’ve never been able to stomach that. But you’d ask for a bath every night if Jaskier might like it.

Your original intentions for going had been selfish, of course, because at the time there was no one to provide for but yourself. And you are, on the university’s coin, mostly provided for. There’s some delicate and beautiful paper that you like to use for your personal work, and a dress you’d ordered a few weeks ago is finally done and ready to be picked up. There’s due to be a party of some sort, you’re sure, before the winter is out, and your last dress is out of season. You may not socialize much, but even you know better than to wear a dress made for spring.  
  
But now… You have things that are much more pressing to find. You have a need, in your chest, to do something to make up for Jaskier’s suffering.   
  
You stop at a stall selling bath ointments and oils, sniffing every bottle meticulously before picking some you think he might like. Your usual bottle at home is mostly empty, and that won’t abide.   
  
You tuck the little bottles into the basket on your arm and head along your way, after that. You buy good-looking fruits at the stall down the way: grapes that the commissary doesn’t normally keep, pristine apples, a pomegranate whose red color catches your eye. You can’t remember what he used to favor, but you’ll cover what bases you can this time of year.  
  
It’s as you’re coming around the corner, on your way to the tailor, that Jaskier comes into view. The market isn’t terribly busy, but it still feels as if the people part like an ocean so that you see him coming down the lane.   
  
There’s a bit of spring in his step, a smile on his face, and you go to meet him before you can worry too much about how his errand went. He’ll tell you when he’s ready, you think. And he doesn’t seem upset — or maybe he’s just hiding it away like he was hiding his experiences eating old bread and sleeping in the mud.  
  
“And how has your shopping gone, my dear?” he asks, taking the basket from your arm and poking around inside it. You don’t fight it, even though you hadn’t expected him to take it, and the way he hums as he looks at the fruit you’d picked makes you feel some small satisfaction.  
  
“Well, I think,” you tell him, smiling without really meaning to. “I’ve a dress to pick up, and then I am mostly done. I think.” Something else could very easily catch your eye. Does he need new gloves? New shoes? You’d buy them, if he wanted. Especially since it’ll be cold, soon.  
  
“Oh, a _dress_?” he asks, eyebrows going high, and you nod as you step closer to him. There are children at play in the street, unfazed by the cool air. “Never thought I’d see the day I saw you out of trousers,” he says, chuckling at your expense, and you elbow him.  
  
“One could say you saw me out of trousers last night,” you say, leering sarcastically. Jaskier has _gotten around_ , but he has never shown interest in you. You don’t have to worry that he’ll take it the wrong way. “I want to be prepared for whatever parties crop up this season, of course.”  
  
“Wearing dresses _and_ going to parties? It’s like you’re a whole new woman,” he teases, and you don’t have time to think the same of him, or to reply, before you’re at the door to Antoni’s shop.

Inside, the tailor’s apprentice is at the counter, and he greets you with a smile.  
  
“Excellent timing, madam,” he says, coming around the counter to put a hand at your back, steering you away from the door. You can feel Jaskier watching your back. “Your dress is quite finished, if you would like to see it.” You can feel his hand through your blouse, and you hurry along to see the dress itself.  
  
“Where is Master Antoni?” you ask, mostly just curious. The man is never far from his work, and you were sure he would talk your ear off about the new technique he’d been eager to try on your dress.  
  
“Checking on his wife at the moment, madam,” the apprentice says, nodding toward the back of the shop. Antoni’s wife is a lovely woman, but he’s told you before that as soon as the air catches a chill, so does she.

The apprentice steps away for a moment and returns with the dress on a hanger, holding it up for your benefit. It’s a dark blue, shimmering like the depths of the ocean, with long and fitted sleeves that should go to the wrist. There is Antoni’s embroidery along the bust and down the sides of the dress, a soft white that curls like rime at the edges and the hem. It’s beautiful.   
  
“I do think the color will suit you marvelously, my lady,” he says, and when you look at him there is an expression on his face that you cannot quite read. What you do know is that you don’t like it. “It is tailored to your measurements, of course, but if you would like to try it on before you go, I can provide assistance with that, too.”  
  
A leer. He’s leering.  
  
The thing is — you _would_ rather try it on before you leave, instead of the rigamarole of taking it home and bringing it back if something isn’t quite right. But —   
  
Behind you, Jaskier makes an annoyed noise in his throat, and you glance back at him.  
  
“We _will_ try it on, thank you,” is what he says, smiling. “And if she needs any help with the fastenings, I am more than equipped.” He is showing very many teeth, but you find you don’t mind.  
  
When you look back at the apprentice, his suggestive look has fallen away into something less unsettling, and he hands the dress past you to Jaskier. He makes quick excuses and goes back to the front, looking cowed, and — all you feel is appreciation.  
  
“Thank you,” you tell Jaskier sincerely, taking the dress out of his now-full hands. There is a curtained fitting room just behind you, and you hide yourself away with the dress before you have to find something else to say.  
  
The apprentice — and gods, you don’t even know his name, which is a testament to how little an impression he usually makes — has never been anything but mostly-professional to you before. He’s young, or at least younger than you. But perhaps Antoni being out of the shop has made him bold.  
  
You’re just grateful that Jaskier was there, kept you from having to make excuses or, worse, from giving in. Just thinking about what the other man was suggesting makes your skin crawl.

You remove your clothes and slip into the dress, checking the fit. It is comfortably snug at your shoulders and hips, and the sleeves just cover the bones of your wrists. The skirt is loose at your knees and ankles, and when you turn it swirls in the air with you. There are probably two dozen fastenings running up your spine, little metal hooks that you can’t reach.  
  
That’s alright, though. For now, you reach behind yourself and pull the sides tight together — no need to fasten them. In front of the long mirror, it fits well. You look almost like a different person, which is — well. Sort of the point, when you boil it down far enough.  
  
There are voices outside the curtain when you start paying attention again, redressing in your trousers and blouse. You put the dress back on its hanger and, with it draped delicately over your arm, you step out into the room.  
  
You’re not sure what you were expecting to find. But what you get is the sight of Jaskier, standing with your basket on one arm and his other hand fervently making a hushed point, talking to Antoni. Meanwhile, Antoni is looking at Jaskier as if he hung the moon.  
  
Antoni has always been a kind man, with enthusiasm about his craft that often gets ground out of people by time and reality. But the raptness with which he is listening to Jaskier talk is surprising somehow on its own, and they don’t part until you gently clear your throat and make yourself known.  
  
“You’ve really outdone yourself, Antoni,” you tell him, running a loving hand across the fabric over your arm. “It’s like something out of a dream.”  
  
“Why yes, of course, my good lady,” he answers, glancing back at Jaskier before fully turning to you. “I do hope you found the embroidery satisfying?” It’s not how he normally talks to you, but you’re finding very little about this visit to be entirely normal.  
  
“You are beyond talented,” you tell him honestly, smiling without ever really meaning to. He’s always been good to you. “However, I think it’s about lunch time, if you don’t mind me cutting our visit short.” You are sort of hungry, but mostly you want to go back home and curl up in front of the fire.

Antoni leads you back to the counter, where he puts the dress in a protective bag and where you find his apprentice to be conspicuously absent. You don’t mind that, though, not really. You don’t want Jaskier to menace anyone else on your behalf, not if you can avoid it.  
  
“Master Jaskier informed me of what happened with Emil,” Antoni says quietly, looking very apologetic. Definitely more apologetic than the boy himself did. “I will have further words with him later, but for now I would like to offer you a discount as an apology.”  
  
You turn your head, looking back at Jaskier — who is turned away and delicately fingering swathes of cloth along the walls — and then back at Antoni.  
  
“I — Antoni, it was not so big a deal for you to lose my money over it,” you tell him. And perhaps this is another instance of your privilege, but you came to the shop expecting to give him the price he’d previously estimated you. You budgeted for it.  
  
“My lady, I cannot —” He looks less than thrilled to be trying to argue it with you, and you smile at him.  
  
“Alright, alright,” you concede before he can work himself into a lather, and he gives you a grateful smile as he names his new, reduced price.  
  
Except the dress is perfect, and he is wonderful, and you really did come expecting to pay the full amount.  
  
You give him what he asks for, counting it out onto the counter for the satisfying clink of coin on wood. He smiles, sweeping it into his hand to put it away, and it is only when his hands are full that you dump the rest of the little purse on the counter and turn to book it out of the store.  
  
He calls out after you, sounding flustered but hopefully not angry, but you ignore him and pull Jaskier along with you before Antoni can follow to try to return it to you. You fully believe he would, and — well. If his apprentice — Emil, right — if he gets the dressing-down you expect he will, that is enough for you.

“What in the world did you do to him?” Jaskier asks as you stride quickly around one corner, then another.  
  
“I could ask the same of you, _Master Jaskier_ ,” you croon sweetly, sarcastically, even as you’re trying to catch your breath. He laughs even as he looks a little embarrassed, pinkness rising in his cheeks.  
  
“Did I overstep? I did, didn’t I—”  
  
“I appreciate you looking out for me,” you tell him sincerely, touching his gesturing arm with your free hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong. But I’m not going to not pay Antoni because his apprentice has no sense of propriety.”  
  
“I didn’t ask him to do that,” Jaskier says, hand coming down to his side. You keep your fingers around his wrist simply because it’s easier to keep stride with him that way. “Just told him what had happened, that it was a bad bit of business.” He breathes something amused through his nose, then, and says — “And what happened to not minding impropriety?”  
  
You know it’s a joke, a throwback to last night, and it is simpler to take it at face value than get into it, to say: “I only don’t mind when it’s you, _Julian_ ,” because it’s true and because it makes him squawk. 

There’s a sweet smell in the air as you round another corner, on the way back to the main street, and you find yourself looking for the source of it as the two of you walk. Jaskier has since calmed down from the run out of the tailor’s, and seems to be taking in the sights. When you find the origin of the smell and pull up short, he makes a confused noise but stops with you nonetheless.   
  
It’s a — appropriately — sweet little bakery, tucked between two other shops. You don’t normally come this way, when you come to the market, and you find yourself drawn inside.  
  
It’s hot, a consequence of the ovens that you can see behind the counter, and the woman that you assume to be the proprietress comes around to meet you. “Good day,” she calls, voice warm like the air in the building, cozy like the close walls on either side.  
  
She talks — she’s friendly, and a demeanor like that is the way to make sales, of course — and Jaskier engages with her. She lets you poke around looking at things, and you keep to yourself. You can’t get the idea of _good food_ , from this morning, out of your head. You don’t want to think about how long it’s been since he’s had something sweet like this, but you know that you’re not going to let it go.  
  
From the woman — you don’t catch her name, you’ll be kicking yourself later for the bad manners — you buy two generous slices of a honeyed spice cake. She wraps them in linen cloth before handing them over to you, smiling even though you haven’t really spoken to her. Payment exchanges hands, farewells are bidden, and Jaskier looks at you strangely when you step out onto the street and press one of the bundles into his empty hand.  
  
“What’s this, for me?” he asks, as if he maybe can’t believe it, and it hurts you somewhere in your chest to think he asked at all.  
  
“Of course it’s for you, my dearest friend,” you say, putting all of your feeling into it, and you bump him with your shoulder because your hands are full. Maybe it should feel like cheating, to call him that when you don’t really have any other friends anymore, but it feels too true not to say it. “Unless you’ve somewhere else you’d like to go, I think I’m done,” you tell him, feeling worn down.  
  
There’s a muffled hum beside you, and when you look at him you see that he’s somewhere euphoric with the cake to his lips.

You eat yours as you walk — it’s still warm, and you don’t want to waste it. It’s delicious, truly, but you don’t think you’re ever going to be able to appreciate it the way that Jaskier seems to be feeling about his. If a crumb goes to waste you don’t see it happen, though mostly you have focused on following the path back to the university so that you do not do something unbecoming, like stare at your friend while he eats.  
  
He’s long-finished but quietly pensive as you take the stairs and halls back to your rooms, and it is only as you unlock the door that he speaks. “Thank you,” is what he says, pulling you attention from the lock, and you look at him with some curiosity. “For the cake, and for sharing your space with me,” he elaborates, looking soft around the eyes.  
  
“You are going to take me seriously sometime, when I say nice things to you,” you tell him, turning to lean back against the doorframe. “You are my dearest friend. I care for you deeply, no matter how long we’ve been apart. I would do anything to keep you from the suffering you have apparently been through these last few years.”  
  
He makes some noise of surprise, but someone is coming your way — you can hear their boots. Perhaps it is Karina, who you know favors boots and who you get along with only when the stars are just right in the sky. You push open the door and usher him inside before you can see whoever it is. Talking to Jaskier is one thing, but talking to people is another, and not something you want much to do with after shopping all morning.  
  
He sets the basket down on the nearby table and turns back to you, reaching out to take the dress from your arms. You’ve mostly forgotten it was there, honestly.  
  
“You know, I did not suffer so much as you think I did,” he says, even as he goes to hang the dress in the wardrobe in your bedroom. You find yourself following him, interested in what he has to say. You’re always going to be interested. “It was terrible some days, yes — sleeping on the ground, or in dirty little inns, or occasionally someone’s stable. And the food wasn’t always great, but it was edible. And… Traveling with Geralt was always worth it.”  
  
“Geralt?” you ask, thinking — this must be his muse, that he’d mentioned last night. But you had never expected Jaskier to tether himself to someone who sounds so… dirty.  
  
“…yes? Geralt of Rivia? The White Wolf?” He narrows his eyes at you as you look blankly back at him, trying to determine why he thinks you should know the name, and then — “The _Butcher of Blaviken_?”  
  
“What?” That is a name you _do_ know, and you recoil without meaning to before leaning in, touching his shoulder. “Please tell me you are kidding. Are you alright? Are you cursed?”  
  
“I am far more curious as to how you haven’t heard _any_ of my music, but I’m going to let you get away with that one for now, my sheltered girl,” he returns, looking strange but — happy, nonetheless. “I’m not cursed. Or joking. And Geralt is much more than the monster that he is made out to be.” He sighs, touches your arm where you’re still holding his shoulder. He looks, suddenly, very sad. “He is a good man. Noble, and loyal, if a little gruff. He loves his horse, and he hates getting caught up in the affairs of men even though it happens to him time after time.”  
  
There is a ferventness in his voice, a sincerity, that has you believing him long before he’s done speaking. You close your eyes, and nod, and let him go. Jaskier is an adult, he can do what he wants, but —  
  
“And he keeps you safe?”  
  
“Far more often than I would have imagined, yes,” Jaskier answers, and smiles widely then. “And now, truly, tell me how you have not heard any of my ballads in the last three years!”  
  
“Well, I don’t get out all that much, do I?”  
  
He laughs, passes you by on the way back to the den, and picks up his lute from where he’d left it last night. “I suppose I’ll have to give you a private show, then, my lady,” he says, bowing his head like you’re someone important even as he takes a comfortable seat on the edge of your table. It feels like you should be going to class after this, like you’re looking at the past and the future all at once.   
  
But he’s happy, and you can see it, and that is enough for you to sit in your normal spot on the couch and watch him with no fake admiration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to (kindly) share SPAG errors with me; this is beta'd only in as much as i wrote a second copy and revised it on the fly, and there are no red squiggles in my scrivener right now except for under all these names
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://ragequilt.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/ahrhi_169)!


	2. when water falls rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having Jaskier wintering with you is going over quite well. Other than the part where you woke up feeling less than great...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have decided on handwaving a myriad of things that include: medieval(ish?) architecture and the existence of fireplaces, the idea of 'civilians' having jobs in the witcher universe, medicine, and as we will see (hopefully) in the future, the concept of fairly available magical/potion(al) contraception  
> i have also technically written shani into this fic BUT the wiki is so much less than helpful to me and i have zero read on her character voice sooo i'm just out here doing my best
> 
> title from "to all my friends" by may yang  
> 'to all my friends who have been with me in weakness  
> when water falls rush down my two sides'

Jaskier has been back in Oxenfurt for about three weeks now, and you have settled into something approximating a routine. Your work does not stop or change much when the seasons do, which is something that you enjoy about it, but it does mean you spend five days a week holed up in the library during the daylight hours. Occasionally there’s someone significant to meet that wants your services from the dean, but mostly it’s just you and half a dozen books for hours at a time.  
  
Jaskier himself has managed to find work with several of the inns in the city, which is less surprising now that you are aware of how (apparently) famous he is. You’re proud of him, of course, but it’s still strange to think it. He has a rotating schedule in which he appears at them, so that no one feels favored or disfavored (his ability to manage peoples’ feelings is so impressive, all the time), and he leaves sometime in the afternoon and returns long after dark.  
  
You are in the habit of waiting up for him, no matter how late he gets in, and if he’s aware of it he hasn’t mentioned it. Mostly it’s for your peace of mind — Oxenfurt is largely a safe place, but you wouldn’t put it past him to find trouble anywhere, now that you’ve heard some of his traveling stories.  
  
Despite his late return he insists you breakfast together in the morning, and he always seems to know somehow if you skip lunch or dinner. More than once you’ve come home to a platter on the table in the den, accompanied with a (you’ve decided) stern-but-fond note about your eating habits. He usually eats dinner at whatever inn is hosting him for the night, but on the weekends he doesn’t perform, and you find the time to run errands together, or eat together, or just — spend time together.  
  
Life is easier with Jaskier around, in its own peculiar way. You weren’t lonely, before, but you feel somehow less lonely now. You’re not too keen on investigating it; this is a gift horse you won’t look in the mouth. You’re also not too keen to think about what life will be like when the winter is over and it’s time for him to part ways with you, to go back to his Witcher.

“What are your plans tomorrow?” you ask him over breakfast. You’ve had a headache since you woke but you’re finally awake enough to talk, and he’s been half-eating half-writing for the last several minutes. You’re thinking about proposing a trip to the market in the morning — you’re nearly out of the apples that he likes, and you still refuse to back down on the idea of treating him while he’s here. There’s a new shipment of books coming in this afternoon, as well, and perhaps you’ll get first pick and bring one home, spend the evening tomorrow reading it.  
  
“Mmm… Depends on what time I get home, I suppose. I might sleep the day away,” he says, winking, and you roll your eyes at him even though it hurts a little.  
  
“Some of us don’t rise with the sun, I can’t help it,” you return, sticking your tongue out at him even as he laughs.  
  
“I’m going to be so spoiled when I go back on the road again,” he says, stretching his arms high over his head. “My body aches just thinking about it.”  
  
“Oh, you poor thing. Living the life of a traveling bard with _Geralt of Rivia_ ,” you say, stressing his Witcher’s name because it always makes him smile. You know he misses Geralt, and you think he appreciates the reminder that they’re — due to meet back up, or whatever it is that they do exactly.  
  
“Poor me indeed,” he agrees, and then his brows crease and there’s a worried look on his face, focused at you. “Are you alright?”  
  
“Hm?” Now that he’s mentioned it, your stomach is twisting, but you are suddenly half-afraid that if you open your mouth to speak you may vomit.  
  
“You’re looking rather pale,” he says, and then sidles closer on the couch to touch your forehead. “And you’re a bit clammy… Do you need to stay in today? I can go make your excuses. The Dean loves me.” Everyone loves Jaskier. That’s just a fact.  
  
You take a few deep breaths, leaning your head into his hand where he’s still touching your face, and after a moment the feeling passes. “I think I’m alright,” you tell him honestly — though there is an undercurrent of desire to not bother him, too. He’s not had much sleep yet; you won’t have him running around on your behalf. You’ll be fine.  
  
“Are you sure? I could go get Shani on my way back,” he offers, and you give him your most reassuring smile.  
  
“I’m sure she’s busy with her practice. I won’t disturb her.” You take another deep breath, let it out in a sigh. “I’ll just go wash my face; I should be getting ready anyway.”  
  
He makes a noise of assent, lets you up, and you make your way to the other room with minimal struggle. Your stomach has mostly stopped folding over itself as you wipe your face down in the mirror, but Jaskier is right. You do look terrible.  
  
Oh well. There’s no one to impress anyway; it’s fine.

You dress and head out, giving him a quick hug around the shoulders over the back of the couch as you go. If you give him your normal tight goodbye, you really might be sick, but you’re not going to tell him that.  
  
You are blessed enough to get a small office to yourself; your day is booked solid with translating the last of a magic-adjacent text for some sorcerer that the Dean knows. It’s interesting, and entirely foreign, and the sigils inked on the pages are difficult but satisfying to recreate.  
  
You don’t look up until it’s already lunch time, and that only happens because there’s a knocking at the door. You might just skip lunch today, now that you’re thinking of it. The thought of food is terrible, right now.  
  
On the other side of the door you find Shani, which is somehow simultaneously a surprise and no surprise whatsoever.  
  
“You would imagine my surprise when I found that our friend Jaskier has returned to Oxenfurt, and only deigns to visit me when he is concerned for your health,” she says, breezing into the room with no real greeting and setting her bag on the table you’ve mostly covered with texts.  
  
“I’m… sorry? I told him not to bother you,” you tell her, going back to your seat. You know there’s no sense in arguing, not with her.  
  
“It’s fine,” she answers, and it sounds like she means it. “I think we both know that Jaskier is… easily distracted.” The line of her mouth quirks up at one side, and you relax further into your chair. At least she’s not mad.  
  
You make a noise of agreement as she opens the bag, looks inside it, and then looks back at you. Maybe it’s something on your face, but she leaves the table and approaches you. “What is your ailment, exactly?”  
  
“I told him I wasn’t sick,” you insist, even as she reaches out and touches your forehead. “Didn’t want to make an ordeal out of nothing.”  
  
“You are a little warm,” she says, reaches down to touch two fingers to the pulse point on your throat. “And by the look of your face, you’re definitely not well. What are your symptoms?”  
  
“Woke up with a headache,” you tell her, thinking back. “I was queasy this morning, not much better now. Sort of dizzy?” She’s already here; no sense in lying or downplaying it to her.  
  
“Hmm.” There’s a glint in her eye that you don’t like, when she looks back up at your face. “When was your last bleeding?”  
_  
Oh_ , that’s why you didn’t like it. “I’m not pregnant,” you tell her, frowning.  
  
“Are you sure? I know Jaskier is a very… appealing man,” she remarks, and you feel more ill than ever at her words, at the unsubtle implication.  
  
“We aren’t like that, Shani. And I would appreciate it if you dropped that line of questioning.” There’s a critical first step to getting pregnant that you just… don’t participate in. Not with Jaskier, not with Eryk, not with anyone in a very long time.  
  
“Alright, alright, sorry. Didn’t mean to touch a nerve.” She steps back, seems to be just looking at you. “Your pulse is elevated, but that may just be me riling you up,” she remarks, and you find you can’t hold it against her. “Have you eaten anything strange lately?”  
  
“Just food from the commissary,” you say, thinking back to last night’s dinner, breakfast this morning. You’re not an adventurous eater. “Nothing unusual.”  
  
“Hmm. It may just be something you caught from one of your peers. I know there’s a bug going around. If you’re feeling worse in the morning, come see me — or send your man,” she instructs, smirking even as she says it.  
  
“Not my man,” you say petulantly, but this is not the hill you want to die on. Too much protesting will not make her believe you. “But I will let you know, if I am worse tomorrow.”  
  
“Good. I gave Jaskier quite a hard time as payment for not coming to say hello; he made me promise to give you top-notch care.” She rolls her eyes, crosses her arms. “As if I ever do anything else.”  
  
“Thank you anyway, Shani.” Talking to her has exhausted you, and you’re grateful when she gathers her things and leaves, pulling the door shut behind her.

The rest of the day passes in a hazy blur. You just finish the translation for the Dean’s sorcerer, but only barely. That you remember to pick up one of the new arrivals is its own accomplishment, but you didn’t even look at the title when you put it in your bag.  
  
You drag yourself home on weary feet, barely keeping your eyes open for the walk. And it’s not even a long walk — for which you’re grateful, or you might not have made it.  
  
Inside your quarters you shrug off your thin cloak, shivering in the cool air of the room, and you force yourself to get down on your knees to rekindle the fire. After that, though, you’re properly exhausted. You’ll just stretch out on the couch for a little while to recoup some energy, and then you’ll change.

At some point you must fall asleep, entirely against your will. You only wake to the sound of someone saying your name, something touching your shoulder. Your eyes are gritty when you force them open, and your throat clicks as you swallow.  
  
“Jaskier?” you ask, as if it could be anyone else, and he hums in response. His hand leaves your shoulder to touch your face, and you let yourself lean into it. He’s warm.  
  
“What are you doing out here, darling?” he asks, and you see the burned-out fire behind him, the darkness in the room. The only light is a candle on the table.  
  
“Fell asleep,” you tell him, shivering without meaning to. Knowing the fire is out shouldn’t make a difference, but it must to your brain. “Cold.” Talking feels like a misuse of energy.  
  
“You’re burning up,” he says, thumb brushing your brow. “Did Shani not come see you today?”  
  
“She did,” you rasp, taking measured breaths as best you can. Your head throbs like a bad hangover. “I’m fine,” you insist.  
  
“Not really selling me on that,” he says, taking his hand away. He hums, looks up. “Let’s get you into something comfortable, hm? Get you to bed?”  
  
You grumble and groan as he encourages you to your feet, but you’re grateful for his support as he takes one of your arms. Having your eyes open just makes things worse, and your body feels heavy — though whether that’s from sleep or ‘the bug’, you don’t know. Thinking about it is too complicated right now.  
  
“Dizzy,” you tell him, murmuring really, when an uneven stride jostles you. You bury your face against the nearest part of him, feeling like you’re being unhelpful but also feeling very terrible.  
  
“Sorry,” he says, and he slows his steps. Tells you when you’re stepping across the threshold into the bedroom. Before you know it he’s settling you down onto the edge of the bed.  
  
“I will say, I’m not accustomed to caring for someone without accelerated healing,” he says. He’s been saying a lot of things, but you haven’t been hearing most of them. He’s lit another candle, or brought the other one somehow? You don’t know. You only know there’s light coming dimly through your eyelids. “Can you get out of your clothes, or do you need some help? You’ll be quite annoyed in the morning if you go to bed in those.”  
  
You don’t answer, bringing your hands to your vest in lieu of words. Your fingers feel thick and heavy and useless, fumbling at the fastenings. When you break down and open your eyes to give him your most plaintive look, he’s wearing an expression that is all worry, all pity.  
  
He sighs and shakes his head even as he leans in to make his own attempt at the hooks; you rest your head against his shoulder because it’s _right there_ , it’s convenient, and your skull feels very heavy. His neck is warm against your ear.  
  
Your vest falls open and you shrug out of it, letting him do most of the work of getting it fully off. He takes his warmth away to kneel and undo your boots, even, while you fight your overshirt off over your head. Fine motor skills are just beyond you right now.  
  
“Can you get your trousers?” he asks, and to your ears it sounds less like another offer and more like a suggestion, and you hum your assent. You won’t make him do that for you. But…  
  
“Would you bring me some water?” Your voice is still hoarse, but maybe a drink will help. And it means he won’t have to watch you struggle some more. Somewhere in the back of your mind you’re definitely starting to feel self-conscious about it.  
  
“I can do that,” he agrees, and when you look at him, he’s wearing a wan smile. “I’ll be right back.”

It takes some work to wallow out of your pants — and it is definitely wallowing. You feel hot and sick when you’re finally undressed, just from the effort. You leave your trousers wherever they fell on the floor, and you curl up on your side underneath the blanket.  
  
Jaskier returns just as you’re properly comfortable — or as close as you’re going to get — with a glass of water in hand. He comes to your side of the bed, helps you drink with minimal spilling, and then just — looks at you.  
  
He wears expression twice as vividly as any other man, and right now he just looks distressed by the low light of the candle. You make a grumbling noise that has him touching your forehead again, and that makes you sigh. His hands make everything feel better, even if it’s just a little.  
  
“Please tell me this is helping,” he says. He looks back toward the other room. “Do you want me to go get a damp cloth? For your face?”  
  
“You’re helping,” you answer. At least your throat feels better now that you’ve had some water. “I’m just… tired.” Your body trembles against your will again, and — “And cold. Should come keep me warm, instead,” you decree weakly, but his uneasy smile turns into something sincere for just a moment.  
  
“I guess the lady knows her needs better than I do,” he says. “You’re sure?”  
  
You hum an affirmative answer, already snuggling back into the blankets.  
  
“If you aren’t better in the morning, I’m getting Shani,” he says, already undoing his doublet. “And you won’t argue with me about it.”  
  
“Sure,” you agree, and he blows out the candle after that.  
  
From the sound of it, he finishes undressing as he rounds the bed, and shortly thereafter he’s climbing in behind you. His body pressed against yours is like a line of fire; if he could envelop you, you would ask for it. The noise you make is probably excessive, but your pride is somewhere with your trousers in the floor.  
  
“And you’ll tell me if you get too hot, or wake me up if you feel worse?” His voice is right in your ear, makes you shiver, and he holds you a little tighter.  
  
You make your promises and, when you close your eyes to try to find sleep again, it is not so difficult.

When you wake in the too-early morning — and it is morning, based on the dim, cool light through the window — you feel a little better. Except for the throbbing in your skull, but then again nothing is perfect. You remember most of Jaskier getting home, remember feeling frozen — and you’re definitely not so cold now.  
  
Jaskier is still holding you, as if you slept like rocks and didn’t move in the night. His arms are a gentle vice around your stomach, and you think that his breath is a warm-damp spot on your neck. You’re thirsty, but not so inconvenienced that you want to bother to move, probably. You’re somewhere in between, internally deciding if it’s worth the effort or not, when you fall asleep again.

Jaskier getting out of bed, later, is what wakes you the second time. You groan and roll over onto your back, covering your eyes from the firm light of true morning. Wherever he had been intending to go, he stops, because he’s back at the bedside immediately.  
  
“Good morning,” he says like he always does, but the undercurrent of worry on him is apparent even without looking at him.  
  
“Morning,” you return and, without thinking about it or opening your eyes, you reach out one hand for him. He curls his hand around yours, folds your fingers together, and you breathe out a sigh. You’re still feeling a bit unmoored, rough around the edges, but he’s helping and may not even know it.  
  
“How are you feeling?” he asks after a beat, and you smile at him blindly.  
  
“How did I know you were going to ask?” you remark, but you’re not bothered. Not at all. “Not fantastic, but I think the fever is gone.” Your stomach growls and you realize that — you really had missed lunch and dinner. Was there even a lunch platter in the den? You hadn’t looked, yesterday.  
  
“You’re sure you don’t want me to go get Shani?”  
  
“Absolutely not, she’ll never let me live it down,” you answer, and he chuckles. Sets down on the bed at your side and lets your hand go so that, apparently, he can brush the hair out of your face. You peek your eyes open at him and discover the look of worry he’s projecting at you. Even with his face softened from sleep, he wears these things so strongly. “I mean it. I’ll be fine.”  
  
“It is very difficult to sit idly by and watch you suffer,” he says. “at least with Geralt I can — wash out his wounds, sometimes. He heals so much more quickly than you or I. I don’t think he’s ever been sick.”  
  
“Now _that_ is something to be envied,” you tell him, wondering distantly about his traveling partner. Even from all the stories he has told you, you know there are things you haven’t heard. Part of you would like to know every single detail, but… that’s a thought for another time.  
  
“—eat?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Would you like for me to get you something to eat?” he asks, apparently not for the first time, and he folds his hands together in his lap.  
  
“If you want to,” you say, stomach rumbling again. This time there’s no way he missed it, based off the smile that flashes across his face.  
  
“I think part of your lunch is salvageable, if you want it. Or I can go to the commissary.”  
  
“Lunch is fine,” you tell him. “You already do… so much. I feel like I ask too much of you.”  
  
“Feeding you is no hardship, considering you are responsible for my free room and board,” he answers, and you scrunch your face up at him in what you hope he reads as affectionately annoyed, because that’s what you feel. “I don’t mind at all. And also, you _are_ bedridden.”  
  
“Any other day you’d just be calling me lazy bones,” you return, and his laugh makes you laugh too. Even though it comes with a bit of pain.  
  
“I’ll be right back,” he says, and then he’s getting to his feet and leaving the room.

You drag yourself out of bed shortly thereafter, because if you don’t get up now you really might stay in bed all day. You pull on your robe from where it’s hooked on the end of the bed from yesterday and make your way into the den. Jaskier makes all sorts of concerned and annoyed noises at you, but you just curl up on the couch instead. It’s a compromise that will have to satisfy him and, considering the way he presses up against your side and nearly hand-feeds you breakfast, you think he’s not upset.

Jaskier frets for most of the day but seems to ultimately trust your judgment on your wellbeing. Mostly you’re just grateful to not disturb Shani; you would hate for her to see the domesticity you have with Jaskier, and you’re not sure why. Maybe it’s just your sick brain talking. He does refuse to let you do much of anything, though, bringing drinks and snacks and even your book out of your bag where you’d dumped it just inside the door yesterday. It’s easier to give in than it is to fight him, and you don’t really want to fight him anyway.

Life with Jaskier is… nice. Easy, even. You really don’t want winter to be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone for the kudos and comments on the previous chapter!  
> please feel free to (gently) share any SPAG errors you find with me. all betaing was done by me, inasmuch as i rewrote it and edited it on the fly. i'm sure when i self-indulgently read this tomorrow or next week or whenever, i will find something i missed. 
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://ragequilt.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/ahrhi_169)!


	3. like waves in the ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier has caught the eye of someone where he's been performing, and it shouldn't bother you as much as it does. But you can't seem to deal with it, despite your own disinterest in sex. Why can’t you get over this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some notes for this chapter:  
> i'm demisexual myself (with a nearly nonexistent libido) and all asexual experiences from the mind of the reader are my own. i know they're not universal and i accept that, but writing what i know, here, made far more sense than anything else.  
> this chapter does feature a fair bit of internalized acephobia, but it is 'resolved' before the chapter's end.  
> also, jaskier provides only a couple of 'options' regarding what is not actually referred to as 'asexuality' in the text. it didn't make sense for him to have experienced the full umbrella of the spectrum -- he's worldly, but not /that/ worldly, you know?
> 
> title from "from friends to lovers" by joe vieira  
> 'you're like the waves in the ocean  
> the cool breeze in the wind  
> like the call of the birds in the morning dew  
> like the sounds of beauty in the night'

“You don’t have to wait up tonight,” Jaskier says apropos of nothing, voice carrying through the open doorway to the bedroom where you’re getting ready for the day.  
  
“What’s that?” You stick your head out around the corner, vest half-fastened. Modesty has fallen along the wayside very quickly between the two of you, in a way you know it never would have with someone else. But Jaskier could never be just like anyone else to you, and that’s part of the reason you’re in each other’s pockets this winter. There’s not much option, really, except to be fine with it, which is no trouble at all.  
  
“I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” he repeats, looking at you from where he’s clearly been folded up over his notebook, working. “And I know you’ll be a right terror in the morning if you don’t get your beauty rest.” He relaxes back into the couch with the book, smirking at you.  
  
“One, that’s rude, I’m a delight,” you argue, giving him your sternest look. (For him, it’s not very stern at all.) “Two, what’s keeping you out so late? I… I like knowing you’ve made it in safely.” With someone else, it would be _too_ much to admit, but your sincere friendship with Jaskier is comfortable and — you try not to overthink it too much.  
  
“I — well.” He opens, closes his mouth, clearly thinking. “I’m going to be sleeping somewhere else tonight, I think,” is what he says, putting a pause in your buttoning once again. Nothing about that sentence sounds quite right coming out of his mouth.  
  
“Have you finally tired of my snoring?” you ask, smiling without meaning to. Talking to him always has your body acting out of turn with your mind.  
  
“Believe me, my dear, that you are one of the best long-term bed partners I have ever had,” he says, grinning back in that way that makes your heart feel strange and strangled sometimes. “But I have established a rapport with the beautiful young maiden at the inn I’m due to play at tonight, and I do believe she intends to bed me.”  
  
You turn away, then, before your face or your voice can betray any judgment of him. It’s not your place to judge. Trying to dig yourself out of the hole you have very suddenly found yourself in, you say “but do _you_ intend to bed _her_?” The teasing lilt in your voice is pretty convincing, you think.  
  
“Of course I do, darling. A man has needs, after all,” is his reply, and your unsettled feeling before is usurped by the heavy stone that sinks into your stomach at his words. You’ve _heard_ those words before. Not from Jaskier, no, but from Eryk. When you’d had that screaming row in the hallway and he’d dumped you in front of a whole crowd of onlookers.  
  
“Oh, of course,” you allow, uneasily laughing as you fumble the last of the clasps on the vest. You’d thought — despite years-old evidence to the contrary — that maybe Jaskier was different, from other men. Or that perhaps he’d thrown his reputation from when you were in school together by the wayside. Or even that he’d sworn himself to his Witcher — you can hear that love in the way he talks about the White Wolf.  
  
It shouldn’t matter that he’s going to go bed some pretty girl tonight. It’s not your business, after all, and you know that people have desires you don’t. He’s a grown man and he can do whatever he wants, with or without your permission or blessing. But something about thinking about it is making you ill at ease, and — well, maybe that’s just what happens when you think about your closest friend’s sex life. Gods know you’ve never done it before.  
  
You decide you’re running late to work quickly thereafter, despite the fact that there’s no one particularly expecting you, and you rush out the door without your customary embrace in farewell.

Maybe it’s because you’re still thinking about it, or maybe Melitele has decided you need to be taught a lesson, but you find _normal_ people everywhere you look for the rest of the day. When you go to return a few reference texts to the shelves in the library you find two students at a table in the corner, necking. You don’t know their names, but the boy’s hand is high up the girl’s skirt, and they hardly look ashamed when you alert them to your presence. You run them both out, but it leaves you on edge for the rest of the morning.  
  
You go to get lunch out of a desire to expend some of your restless energy, but all you really get is a place in line behind two young women discussing, in hushed tones, how their friend’s paramour had jumped out her window this morning after a night of passion, wearing nothing but his smallclothes and boots. You may not know the people in the story personally, but there’s a young man with love bites on his throat that you run into inside the commissary, and you wonder if it’s him. Or if it’s just a coincidence, or if everyone really is out there having sex and you are the only outlier, the only cold-hearted prude. You wonder, as you travel back to the library, what it is about sex that makes people do such risky things like jumping out of windows, or risking discipline, just for a few hours of ‘passion.’ Passion has always felt rather flat, to you.  
  
You hole up for the rest of the afternoon, hard at work, and you make the walk back to the residential wing with your head down in an attempt to avoid other people. Except, when you come around the landing of the stairs on your way to your rooms, you find Karina and her partner (Aleksander? Adrian?) halfway to fucking in the _middle of the hallway_ , you can’t ignore that. And you don’t bother to hold in your disgusted scoff, the roll of your eyes as you stomp past them. Why is it so difficult for people to keep their kissing and their touching and their _sex_ to themselves?  
  
“Poor prissy thing,” Karina calls at your back, voice hoarse in a way you are not acknowledging. When you glance back at her, she’s got her arms around her partner’s back like some sort of octopus, her chin on his shoulder. One leg is thrown around his waist, and you feel like if you wanted to you could see up her dress. “Or are you just upset to see what you’re missing?” The smeared painted red of her lips, curled up in a sharp smirk, starts an angry fire in your chest.  
  
Instead of responding in kind, you scoff at her and turn back to stomping your way to your rooms. “Surprised to see that Jaskier hasn’t _loosened_ you up some, yet,” she continues, like you haven’t just brushed her off. “Or is that your problem? He’s not interested and you’re feeling left out?” She laughs, then, and you find you can’t get away from her fast enough.  
  
Sure, maybe you’d jeopardized her thesis the year you’d graduated, because she’d not verified any of her sources beyond a glance, but you keep assuming every time you encounter her that she’s gotten over it. The only times you’ve ever gotten along is when she’s been drinking, but — well, that doesn’t count. You should have learned by now.  
  
She makes an exaggerated moaning noise as you stride away, wanting to be in your rooms before she can wind you up any further, and you focus in on your steps instead. The sooner you’re behind closed doors, the happier you’ll be.

The worst part of it is that, even once you’re safely in your rooms, you can’t get her words out of your mind. Maybe she’s not entirely wrong.  
  
Sometime over the course of the day — over the course of too much time spent only in your own company — and now with Karina’s horrible words in your ears, you decide that maybe… Well, maybe you are a little jealous. What you would do if someone propositioned you, you don’t know, but it might be nice to be wanted.  
  
It’s easy to write off the way you’d felt about Eryk and his pushy nature by the end of your relationship as — as a consequence of how he was, who he was. Maybe it would be different, with someone else. You’ve never gone beyond hands and fingers and mouths, but you were young then. Maybe you’d be able to commit to having sex with someone, if it was someone else.  
  
But, by and large, you have a reputation now. Much like Jaskier has a reputation for getting around, you’ve got one for… For being a prude, for being prissy and stand-offish. It’d been the easiest way to present yourself after the breakup, and you’ve spent the last few years half-resigning half-accepting your future as an old maid.  
  
And maybe it just wasn’t fair to Eryk to be put off by sex, when he’d approached you the first time. You’ve been with other people — girls and boys you’d shared classes with, that you couldn’t bring yourself to turn down — but it had always felt performative in a way you could never settle with. You’re a scribe for a reason, not an actor.  
  
Eryk’s pursuit had come right on the tail of another unthrilling experience, and you’d been _tired_ of it. You’d given him a caveat that you thought would drive him away — that you wouldn’t lie with him until you were graduated and engaged. Looking back on it, you’d been an idiot to suggest it, and he’d been an idiot to accept it. It had seemed easier than saying no, but he’d proved you wrong in the end about that. The worst part of it was that, without the pressure to have sex with him, you did like him. You’d thought his acceptance meant that he truly was fine with it, and you’d enjoyed so much of your time together that you’d thought someday you would learn to desire him.  
  
But you hadn’t, and apparently your… lack of a spark, your cold heart — it’d driven him into Zofia’s bed. (And, as you learned after the fact, Milena’s bed, Luiza’s bed, and probably countless others.)  
  
There is something wrong with you, that much is clear. To spend two years with a man and never desire him? To think about other people having sex and feel sick to your stomach?  
  
And beyond that, there is something doubly wrong with you to want intimate attention even though you know better. Even though you know that, the last time you’d been with someone, your skin had crawled the whole time. Nothing makes sense.  
  
And Jaskier won’t be home tonight — and even if he was, could you share this with him? As sexual as he is, would he understand, or would he just agree that there was something wrong with you? You can’t bear to think of that, don’t want to imagine the look of disgust on his face when you tell him of how you tricked Eryk for years into a sexless relationship.  
  
You’re upsetting yourself, just thinking about these things, and — well, there is one good solution to feeling down about things. You can look at Jaskier’s absence for the evening as a good thing — it means you can take a long, decadent bath, and you won’t have to worry about anything for a while.

The matron sends along a young man with the tub and then a string of maids with buckets of hot water, at your request. You pick out a bottle of lovely wine that you’ve been saving for an ideal time, and now is as good an occasion as any.  
  
You’re out of your regular bath oil, which is inconvenient but not impossible. The ones you’d bought for Jaskier, when he’d first arrived, are lined up on one of the low tables, and you pick one from there. It’s woodsy and sweet somehow, soothing, and you decide that it’s the best choice.

The wine is good. Relaxing after a long week — and an especially long day — is a legitimate treat. You should have started doing this a long time ago. You don’t need someone else’s attention to enjoy yourself, to have a good time. You’re all the company you need.  
  
Does that mean something is wrong with everyone else, for needing companionship? Or is it something wrong with you, to be satisfied with loneliness? Does that mean you should never want anyone else at all, for anything, if you can be satisfied by yourself?  
  
Philosophy was never your area of expertise. You force yourself to give up on that line of thought and just — relax, drifting.

When you go to bed that night, feeling soft and sweet-smelling and well-treated, your nerves have settled. Or maybe that’s the wine sitting in your empty belly. You hadn’t wanted to bother going to get dinner, after.  
  
You wake up when Jaskier gets back, though there’s no way to know what time it is. It’s still dark, at least, that much you know. When you blink your eyes open, you see him only by the grace of the light of the moon.  
  
“Welcome back,” you murmur, watching him slip off his doublet, undo his trousers. You’ve half rolled over onto his side of the bed in your sleep, and you don’t really want to move.  
  
“Oh, you’re awake,” he says, and the smile on his face draws your attention. Warms you from the inside out, even as you see the livid purple mark on the side of his throat. You feel too good and too warm right now to care about it.  
  
“Barely,” you agree, reaching one hand in his direction. “Been spoiled by my personal bed warmer,” you remark. “Makes it hard to sleep, now, without it.” He laughs quietly at you as he slips underneath the blanket, into touching range.  
  
He doesn’t seem to care that you’re in his space, just settles into his normal spot on his normal side of the bed. You’re nearly nose to nose. You touch his folded-together hands because it’s the nearest part of him, and you frown.  
  
“You’re cold,” you say, half-scolding and half-surprised, and he laughs again.  
  
“I _was_ just outside,” he answers, even as you fold his hands together in yours. You won’t let that slide.  
  
At some point you drift off, back into sleep, but it is long before his hands leave yours.  
  


* * *

  
You quickly find a routine, after that. Jaskier plays at that same inn twice a week, sees presumably that same woman twice a week, but he always comes back early when you have to work the next day. When you don’t, and he’s gone late, you treat yourself to a bath and to good wine by the fire.  
  
Three weeks after the first time, you’ve just sunk into the bath with a full glass when the door to your quarters flies open. You slosh your wine everywhere in alarm, but when it’s only Jaskier that comes through the door, you settle again.  
  
He’s breathing heavily, looking rumpled, and it’s only once he slams the door shut and locks it that he turns around to look at you. “Oh, gods, I’m sorry,” he says upon realizing you’re naked, turning his eyes away, and you laugh because — well, what else can you do? You’re definitely not cutting your bath short, and you’ve already folded one leg over the other, curled your free arm around your chest.  
  
“You’re fine,” you tell him, laughing as he stumbles to take off his boots with one hand blocking his face. “And you’re back very early, what happened?”  
  
“Turns out that Marta was a married woman!” he says, voice high. From here you can see that his cheeks are pink; he must still be flustered from apparently running back to the university.  
  
“Oh, no.” You can’t help but laugh, because — this would only happen to him. “And let me guess, her husband came back?”  
  
“That’s quite correct,” he says, sighs. “And we were already… engaged, so — well. It was rather awkward.”  
  
“Sounds like it.” You take a drink of your wine. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s alright,” he says, shrugs. He’s still not looking at you. “One of the risks of catching a stranger’s eye, I suppose. I should be used to it by now.”  
  
“It happens to you a lot?”  
  
“More often than I might like. And their partners are always upset with _me_ , as if I’m the one who knew my bed-partner was spoken for and carried on anyway!”  
  
“Come relax, have a drink,” you offer, unsure how to offer sympathy for that entirely foreign situation. When you’d caught Eryk with Zofia, you’d been far more angry with him than with her. You pick up the bottle of wine from the table and hold it out in his direction. When he stumbles over the edge of the rug — “And you can look at me, you know, it’s not that big a deal.”  
  
He makes some kind of noise you can’t understand over the sloshing of the water at your side, but he does give in. When he comes to take the bottle you see the fresh love bites on his throat, and —  
  
“Is it worth it?” you ask him, and he gives you a curious look. “The risk of getting thrown out by a jealous lover,” you elaborate, gesturing at your own throat because he’s taken a seat on the table, out of reach.  
  
“I — well. Of course it is?”  
  
“I don’t mean it rudely,” you say, frowning a little at his tone.  
  
“I know you didn’t, dear.” He takes a drink from his own glass, puts his elbows on his spread knees. His doublet is entirely undone, undershirt on display. “Do you not think it would be worth it?”  
  
“…” You give him a sideways look, thinking hard. “Is that a trick question?”  
  
“Do I ever ask you trick questions?”  
  
You roll your eyes at him, feeling fond. “Only when you want my opinion on your newest stanza.” You haven’t forgotten last week.  
  
“Alright, that’s fair. But no. It’s not a trick.” He looks unusually interested in your answer, and you deliberate as you figure out how best to say it.  
  
“Well, then… No, I guess I don’t.” There’s no actually guessing about it, but you feel unsure under the weight of his eyes on your face. “It all just seems very overrated.”  
  
You expect him to take offense to your judgment, to gasp dramatically or otherwise, but he doesn’t. His mouth, wine-red, turns from a smile into a pensive line.  
  
“Has someone —” His eyebrows are sad, and you shake your head at the implication. You’ve been lucky, stayed safe.  
  
“No, it’s just always been… Underwhelming. Not all it’s made out to be. Definitely not worth the risk or trouble.” You sigh. “That you lust for everyone you meet is baffling to me.”  
  
He makes a faux-hurt noise, scoffs. “It’s not lust, darling, it’s love! And not _everyone_ , I do have some taste.”  
  
Oh, right. Because you aren’t included in that number. Why haven’t you gotten over that, yet? Karina’s words are still swimming in your head, but you _don_ ’t want that. You don’t.  
  
“It just seems… impossible to me,” you say, sighing again. Talking means you can almost ignore your brain.  
  
“What does?”  
  
“I mean — to love someone without knowing anything about them, I suppose?” You’ve been thinking about this topic in some form for the last several weeks now, and you still don’t have your thoughts in order.  
  
Jaskier smiles at you, in a way you can barely see around the rim of his glass, and you leg your head fall back against the back of the tub. Your bath is supposed to be for relaxing, not for thinking so hard.  
  
“You’ve never met someone who, by the way they hold themselves, you immediately know you’ll like?”  
  
“…not in a way that made me want to kiss them, no. Or have sex with them.” He hums at that and you shrug. “I know there’s something wrong with me.” You feel unmoored, strange, to have admitted it. At least you’re in good company.

“There’s nothing _wrong_ with you,” he says, sounding intense. “I can’t say I personally experience it, but you’re not —”  
  
“Broken? A freak of nature? Melitele’s disgrace?” You’ve been thinking all these things for too long now to not have have opinions about it, and the aghast sound he makes has you looking back over from where you’d been staring at the ceiling in your shame.  
  
“Absolutely not!” He puts his glass on the table, reaches out to take your free hand. You’ve long-since given up covering your chest; Jaskier isn’t interested and you just don’t care.  
  
“You don’t have to sweeten it for me; I’ve accepted it,” you tell him, even as he holds your hand in both his own. You haven’t seen him so earnest in — well. You can’t remember when, not right now.  
  
“Darling, you’re not alone in this,” he tells you. His callused fingers are warm pressure on your hand, and you put the feeling away for later.  
  
“I’m… not?” It takes a moment for his words to register and when they do it’s a true surprise. You sit up a little, putting your chin on the side of the tub and giving him your undivided attention. “Tell me everything. Please.”  
  
“Well, it’s a matter of…” He looks far away, for a moment, thinking. If he’s going to tell you something like this, you will give him all the time he needs to get the words right. “Do you feel that attraction at all? Not with someone you just met, but someone you know well, perhaps?” When he looks back at you it’s with a soft expression, and you wonder if he knows your heart so well to know that you’ve been thinking of him.  
  
“I —” You’re having a hard time finding words, yourself. Do you tell him the truth and ruin your friendship? Do you tell him a lie and get only half the answers you want?  
  
“There’s no wrong answer,” he assures you, rubs his thumb over your knuckles.  
  
There’s absolutely a wrong answer, you think, but — “I suppose I didn’t know that there was an option,” you tell him, which is entirely true. “I thought it was… all or nothing? I really thought there was something wrong with me.”  
  
“I am so sorry for you to have been in that position,” he says, and you know he means it. It’s hard to look at the sincerity in his face, and you close your eyes to compose yourself.  
  
“It’s why Eryk and I didn’t work out, you know,” is what your mouth says unbidden, while you’re trying to focus your thoughts.  
  
“Really.”  
  
“I didn’t… Didn’t want to lay with him, but I didn’t know how to tell him no, either.” Now that you’ve started, you might as well commit to telling him the full story. “Convinced him I was saving myself for marriage. Thought he was wonderful, when I didn’t have to worry about him wanting to have sex with me.”  
  
Jaskier makes a noise you can’t read, and you open your eyes to see a curious look on his face.  
  
“So have you never…?”  
  
You know him too well to not know what he’s asking. “Oh, I —” Why is this the part that’s suddenly awkward? “I have, before. A long time ago.”  
  
“I love it when you talk like you’re an old woman,” he remarks, and he jerks a laugh out of you.

Jaskier keeps you company for the rest of your bath. You drink the rest of the bottle of wine together, he tells you about his performance and you talk about the inanity of your day. You’re finding that you missed him on these nights, more than you thought you would. More than you should. The end of winter is a looming threat, now, to this happiness.

The next week, Jaskier lets you know that he’ll “be back at my normal time,” which should not satisfy you the way it does. But you’re a terrible person and a terrible friend, and in the secret depth of your heart, you’re happy that he’s no longer bedding that woman.  
  
You go through your day like normal. You shelve books, do research, even eat lunch. But when the matron asks you if you’d like the bath brought up, you turn her down. You don’t want to put Jaskier in that same uncomfortable position from last week when he does return.

Except…  
  
He returns that evening, looking by all accounts as if he has had a good time out. When he sees you folded up on the couch, though, he frowns. And his face is _so_ expressive — it’s twice the frown of any other man.  
  
“Where’s the bath?” he asks, head cocked to one side. He sets his lute case down next to the chair and starts looking through his pockets.  
  
“I… didn’t take one?” You mark your place and shut your book, giving him your full attention. “I knew you’d be back and didn’t want to make you uncomfortable…”  
  
He shakes his head, finally unearths a vial of what looks like —  
  
“I found some salts in the market this afternoon that I thought you might like,” he remarks, holding them out so you can see. “I was hoping you’d use them.”  
  
“You… did?” It’s a most unexpected gift, and when he presses it into your hand you open it just to give it a sniff. There’s rosemary in it, and maybe chamomile? “Thank you, Jaskier.” You put as much feeling into it as you can — you can’t believe how good he is to you, sometimes. Most times.  
  
“You’re most welcome, my dear,” he says, but he sinks into the chair like there’s still a weight on him. “I didn’t mean to ruin your ritual. You’ve seemed so relaxed these last few weeks.”  
  
“Oh. I — I mean, your comfort meant more to me than a bath,” you say, feeling off-kilter. Somehow he always does this to you, and you don’t know that he even means to.  
  
“I was never uncomfortable,” he insists.  
  
“I… It’s a bit late for a bath now, but… I suppose I could take one tomorrow,” you offer, even as you think it’s weird to offer to take a bath to please him.  
  
But he does look pleased when you suggest it, and the weird flip your heart does at his expression is enough to settle the decision in stone.  
  
“I can go to the market while you soak,” he offers, and you can’t help the expression you know you’re wearing.  
  
“I don’t care if you’re here while I’m bathing. You’re good company.” ‘And you’ll never make an advance on me,’ you don’t say.  
  
“Oh. Well. If you’re sure,” he says. “I do have a song I could use a captive ear for while I workshop it.”  
  
“A bath _and_ a serenade? You’re going to have to treat me every week, if you get me used to that,” you tease him, and he just smiles at you again.  
  
“I could arrange that,” he says. He’s wearing that smile that strangles your heart again, but you’re finding that you’re growing used to it. You don’t mind.

That night, most things go like normal. He scolds you when he determines that you haven’t really eaten dinner — and you don’t know how to tell him, still, that you skipped most meals by accident before — and goes to flatter the matron to get access to the commissary even though it’s late. He doesn’t hand feed you the bread and cheese and the last of the grapes from the latest trip to the market, but he does make satisfied little noises as you do eat, so… Maybe it’s the same thing.  
  
After, though, you open your book again in an attempt to continue reading. Except your eyes can’t really catch on any of the words on the page, and your mind is somewhere else, and —  
  
“I still don’t know the answer to your question,” you tell him, breaking your silence and talking over the melody he’s been humming for the last little while. You don’t know how he’s not tired of music, after performing all night.  
  
“My question?”  
  
“From last week,” you try, not sure how to specify it. You wave helpfully at the place where the bath usually sits, instead, like that will provide an answer.  
  
“…the sex question?” Oh, good, it did.  
  
“I appreciate that you know my mind well enough to put that together,” you say, and he laughs. Turns from where he’d been facing the fire to face you, instead.  
  
“It’s one of my many talents, it’s true. What about it, now?”  
  
“I… still don’t have an answer to it. I mean, I’ve been thinking about it but…” You scrub a hand across your face. Why did you even bring this up, again? “How did you even find out about… this?”  
  
“Well, mostly by… talking to people.”  
  
You scoff and roll your eyes at him, and he smiles earnestly back at you. He sets aside his notebook and pen, and you give him your undivided attention.  
  
“ _Obviously_.”  
  
“I mean it! People are a wealth of knowledge and of stories, even if it’s ‘just’ about their lives.” You smile as he does the quotes around the word. You love watching him talk with his hands. “Before I had such a willing muse in Geralt, I would sit in whatever tavern would have me and chat with the people there.”  
  
“You’re kidding.” Just the idea of sitting in a tavern _and_ talking to people sounds like a much-less-than-fun time.  
  
“I’m not. And, well, sometimes those people I talked to were people that I thought might have been interested in me, but when my performance was over, that desire was gone. So I asked them about it.”  
  
“You — walked up to strangers and asked them why they didn’t want to bed you?”  
  
“Oh, well with more subtlety than _that_ , my dear.” He’s laughing, now, and you hope you don’t sound as foolish as you feel.  
  
“What did they say?”  
  
“Well… There were people that were weak to my charm but were not available. Married or engaged, usually, and with a starchness of character that had them hanging their heads after my performance was done.” You internally grumble about how that woman — _that_ woman — should have done the same, but you listen on. “And then there were some who… Well, once I knew what I was looking at, they fell pretty easily into that camp of not being interested in sex with me. Despite of or in spite of the flirting. They weren’t spoken for, weren’t just shy, didn’t find me suddenly ugly once I wasn’t singing anymore…”  
  
You laugh a little at his joke but, mostly, you are enraptured. This is everything you have ever wanted to know, and you hadn’t even known _that_ before last week. And you never would have learned it, sheltered in your regular life.  
  
“Some people didn’t want to really discuss it with me, which — that’s their prerogative, of course. But some people still wanted company, and sometimes we’d sit and talk for a while. There was a young man in a farming village in Aedirn that would look ill if I mentioned something bawdy, but we enjoyed an evening kissing under the stars regardless.” There’s a faraway look in his eyes as he talks, as if he’s reliving every moment. It only helplessly endears him to you further. “There was an older woman in, oh, Lyria somewhere — she was a real catch. A beauty. But she said she’d only ever loved one person, and that was the only one she could bear the thought of bedding. She didn’t know me well enough, you see.”  
  
He looks at you then, really looks, and — you find yourself suddenly staring into your lap. The growing knowledge you have feels… dangerous. To you specifically.  
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you with my stories,” he says, shifting in place.  
  
“I’m not bored,” you promise, glancing back up at him. “Just thinking.”  
  
“Is there someone out there you might bed, if you had the chance?” Yes.  
  
“Perhaps,” you allow, looking at your hands again.  
  
“Hmm. Won’t you tell me who? Is it someone I know? I could tell you all the right things to say, you know. I would never let someone reject you.” Your stomach twists in that strange way it does now sometimes when he’s talking, and you think you’re starting to recognize it for what it is. It’s longing, sharp and sour in a way that makes you hurt.  
  
“I… I don’t think you could talk them into my bed, Jaskier,” you say, unable to look up at him. “It’d be better for my friendship with them not to try.”  
  
“And for you to never have the experience of a fulfilling relationship? Darling, that sounds miserable.”  
  
“I mean, I’ve been living without one all this time, right?” It sounds maudlin, even to you, and you look up to give him your most convincing smile. Oh, looking at him in the firelight makes you hurt, too.  
  
“Well, I won’t push you. You know your heart better than I do.” He shifts to sit even more closely against your side. Pressed together from shoulder to knee, he wraps an arm around your back and pulls you against his side in a way that just makes things _worse_. “But if you change your mind, or you want my help… You only have to let me know, hm?”  
  
“I know.” You take a steadying breath, trying to ignore the smell of his perfume on his clothes. “You’re the best friend I could ever ask for.” Your stomach continues to twist.

That he lets you rest against him for as long as you want is a double-edged sword of sadness and joy. Oh, and to sleep with him tonight…  
  
Life has just gotten much more difficult. But you’ve just got to ride it out a few more months, and then things will go back to normal again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone for the kudos in the last chapter! it means a lot to me that there are other people out here reading this, enjoying this, despite it being written entirely for self-indulgence reasons.  
> please feel free to comment regarding any SPAG errors -- all betaing was done by me, so any mistakes are my own.
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://ragequilt.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/ahrhi_169)!


	4. the silhouette of a single memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter is on its way out, in a manner of speaking, and it goes against Jaskier's nature to skip the party that is being hosted. Except he also refuses to give up on the idea of you seeking your 'love,' and that is brewing into a perfect storm of misery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the part of the story i've been excited to write from the beginning! featuring angst, and miscommunication, and general fear to talk about our feelings, and also complete ruination of shani's character as I write her to be somewhere between a Polite Woman and Yennefer, because I don't know what I'm doing
> 
> this chapter's title from 'typerwriter series #2091' by tyler knott gregson  
> 'i would sleep with the thought of you,  
> with the silhouette  
> of a single memory, with the scent  
> left hours after you've touched  
> me.'

“A little birdie told me there is a soiree later this week,” Jaskier says, sweeping through the door to your quarters like a force of nature. The week is only half over and you are already so tired, but you won’t _not_ wait up for him.  
  
“The only little birdie I know is you,” you tell him, looking up from your place on the couch. At this rate, the cushions will be permanently molded to the shape of your body.   
  
“Well, this little birdie was Shani, who came by to see my set and to ask me why she hadn’t heard of my intent to go,” he says, settling his lute case on the floor and then stopping to take off his boots. When he stands again, you move your feet so that he can sit at the other end of the couch, and then you put them back at home in his lap.   
  
“Sorry, I didn’t think to mention it,” you tell him, which is true. “I already knew I wasn’t going to go, so…” You lay your book down on your stomach to give him your full attention. “I should have thought that you would want to go.”  
  
“You aren’t going to go? But what about Antoni’s beautiful dress?” Of course Jaskier latches on to the part that you were hoping he’d ignore. You’re not sure how often he’s been back to Antoni’s, but you’re pretty sure he’s a fair fan of the other man now.   
  
You’ve also, largely, been trying to forget about the dress. It’s hanging in your wardrobe in the other room, mocking you every time you go to change to go to work.  
  
“Parties aren’t usually my thing,” you say with a sigh, which — is technically true. But you’re also _tired_ and you don’t think you can bear to watch Jaskier flirt with everyone that catches his eye. Not… Well, not knowing what you know, now. Just thinking about it makes your stomach twist.  
  
“Oh, darling.” He’s looking at you, and he’s — too damn perceptive, sometimes, because he asks: “will the person that holds your heart be there?”  
  
“…maybe,” you answer, ignoring the swooping in your gut. You don’t enjoy talking about it, even though you know there’s nothing unkind in him asking. There’s no way he _knows_ , after all.  
  
“Then that’s all the better reason to go! You can tell me who they are, and by the end of the evening you’ll be kissing under the moonlight.” A beat. “If you want that, of course.”  
  
“…I do want that,” you tell him, resolutely not looking at him. He knows you far too well; you’re afraid your feelings are plain to read on your face.  
  
He rubs your knee, other hand curling around your ankle. You decidedly ignore it. Doesn’t mean anything. “C’mon, I’ll make sure you have a good time. Won’t make you talk to anyone you don’t want to.”  
  
“That’s a big promise,” you mutter. And this is just further evidence that he knows you — knows you don’t mind music and dancing and drinks, just dislike all of the small talk with strangers and distant acquaintances. You’ve never been good at rubbing elbows like he is.  
  
His hand is warm on your skin, calluses rough enough to catch your attention, and you resolutely do not focus in on that.   
  
“It’s one I can keep, for you,” he says, because apparently you weren’t quiet enough, and there’s so much earnestness in his voice you can feel it. “Now, won’t you tell me who’s caught your eye?” You feel him lean in more than you see it, because you’re still looking at your lap. “Or… Are you going to make me guess?”  
  
Oh. That’s a good idea. He’d never guess himself, and you won’t have to confess, _and_ maybe he’ll drop it once he gets it wrong a few times. It’s just four more weeks until spring is supposed to break, and then you’ll have all the time you could possibly need to get over him — to get over it. To move on.  
  
“You can guess, and I’ll let you know if you get it right,” you say, smirking because Jaskier is a consistent man and you _know_ he will go for the challenge.   
  
“I accept,” he returns, grinning over at you, and _oh_ , your terrible heart swoops again.  
  
“Good luck,” you offer him, and then you’re laughing together, and — this is perfect. You _will_ not ruin this with your feelings. Not when you only have him for a little while longer.  
  


* * *

  
The event looms over you for the next day or so, but you’re not dreading it as much as you could be. Or at least, not until you try on your dress and discover that you are just not put-together enough to be wearing it out in public. Your regular hair style is bland, almost depressing in juxtaposition to its beauty, and you won’t shame yourself by wearing it out only half-presentable.  
  
“What’s got you twisted up like this?” Jaskier asks some time much later — who knows how long it’s been. You’ve long-since removed the dress and have spent the last few hours, at least, in front of the mirror. If you could get your hair to look even moderately respectable, you could still wear it out. You’re not sure if it or the spring dress you own would be more of a faux-pas right now.   
  
“Trying to — figure something out,” you grumble, pulling your hair away from your forehead and sighing when it doesn’t look right like that, either.  
  
“This doesn’t look like one of those ciphers you like so much,” he remarks, leans in to put his chin on your shoulder. It sends a shiver across your body, which you try to ignore. Watching him watch you in the mirror is — strange and unfair, at the least.  
  
“No,” you allow, sighing again. “I want to do Antoni’s dress justice, and — it’s not as if I have a hat I could wear with it, and it’s too late to commission one.”  
  
“You have no business wearing hats with hair this nice,” he says decisively. When he runs his fingers through the length of it, you shudder. “How do you normally do your hair for events?”  
  
“…I don’t?”  
  
“Do your hair or go to events?”  
  
“Both,” you say, and the noise he makes from his place on your shoulder is bemused. And chill-inducing.  
  
“You’re hopeless, my dear,” he says, nudging your head with his. “But I can help you with your hair tomorrow, if you make it home at a decent time.” You… have a tendency to lose track of time in the library. Oh, this whole gathering just keeps getting more inconvenient. Usually, though, he isn’t even home —  
  
“Wait, you’re not performing tomorrow night?”  
  
“Not at the risk of being late, no. I would much rather be fashionably late on my own terms.” You laugh without entirely meaning to, and his smile, in the mirror, is overwhelming. You force yourself to look away.  
  
“You wouldn’t mind? It wouldn’t be too much?”  
  
“I would do a great many things for you, and prettying your hair up is not even a hardship.” The worst part is… He sounds like he means it. Jaskier is very rarely anything other than sincere, and — sometimes it hurts, just a little.  
  
“Thank you,” you tell him, and then you fold your hands together in your lap to give him free reign over your hair, since that seems to be what his carding fingers want.  
  
“You’re welcome. So… Nataniel?” And it’s back to _this_ again. Maybe you should have expected it when you told him to guess, but you think he’s been through half the roster of the university at this point.  
  


* * *

  
Jaskier isn’t at home when you get back after work the next day, but he sweeps back in shortly after with an outfit in a bag over his arm. “You would not _believe_ how much of a bind you put me in, with such late notice,” he tells you, and you stop in your tracks, looking at him.  
  
What is he talking about— Oh. You watch as he removes the bag, holds up a doublet and trousers. “I’m sorry.” They’re a fine silver-grey, rippling in the light, and they are _beautiful_.  
  
“Oh, don’t be, my dear, I only jest.” He lays them down over the back of the couch and proceeds to cross the room to you. He only stops once he’s well within your personal space, reaching out to touch your shoulders, your wrists, your hips. You can only watch him with wide eyes as he does it — you’re absolutely not going to stop him, after all.   
  
After the longest moment of your life his hands come to rest on either side of your head, fingers buried in your hair, and you do your best to bear it with a smile. Being touched by him has only gotten stranger and more intense as the days have passed, but you’ve been doing your best not to let it show. And working even harder to make sure that every little touch means nothing to you.  
  
“It will take some time to do your hair, but we can wait to put your dress on until after. I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he says, looking at you in a focused way that makes you feel like an open book again.   
  
“You’re in charge here,” you tell him, practicing being as still as possible so that you hopefully don’t ruin anything here. It’s good effort for when he does actually do your hair, later —   
  
“We could do this in the other room, but I think you might be more comfortable in here,” he continues, and — well, apparently ‘later’ is ‘now.’ He lets you go to go get the little stool from the bedroom, bringing it in and over between the fireplace and table. You can only watch him, waiting for instruction. When he gestures for you to take a seat, well… That’s the point of this, so you settle in for the eternity your hair will take.  
  
“I can get the mirror if you’d like to watch me work,” he offers, already threading his fingers through the tangles you’ve gotten throughout the day.   
  
“No, it’s fine. I trust you,” you tell him sighing happily as his nails gently scratch your scalp. “If being a bard doesn’t work out, maybe you should be some lady’s kept hairdresser.”  
  
“Are you offering?”  
  
“As if you’d let me keep you,” you scoff without thinking, without considering the extra meaning to those words. Silence stretches in the air as you go tense all over and he just — doesn’t say anything.  
  
He goes on with your hair almost as if you hadn’t said anything at all. And, well, maybe that’s ideal. If he wants to ignore you sticking your foot in your mouth, you will let him.

“So, I’m sure you’re waiting for me to continue trying to parse out your beloved, _but_ I’ve had a fantastic idea that I think you’re going to agree will work far better than me listing everyone I think you know.”  
  
It takes real effort not to groan at the mention of his guessing game, but you manage. “And what is your master plan?”  
  
“I’m going to wait until we make it to the party, and the moment you see them, your face will light up! It’s impossible that it won’t happen.”  
  
“…Jaskier, not all of us are as expressive as you. I don’t think that’s going to work.” Your instinctive nature to argue is coming out, and you’re already regretting your rebuttal.  
  
“Oh, but you are! I’ve seen your eyes glimmer with joy in these last few weeks. For you to care so deeply for this person, I’m sure it will happen when you lay your eyes on them.”  
  
“And just when have my eyes ‘glimmered with joy,’ lately?” Why can’t you just let him have this one? What’s wrong with you?  
  
“Oh, at the market when I found that stall with the trinkets you liked! And when I brought out those cakes I’d snuck off to buy without you knowing, and…” He hums, thinking. “Well, there have been plenty of times. That’s my point.”  
  
“Are you sure that I don’t just like _stuff_?” Seriously, why are you arguing with him? Why can’t you stop? _You_ can see plain as day what the common denominator is there, but you don’t want him to look any harder at it.

  
He peeks his head into your view probably exclusively to make a show of looking around your sparse rooms and — well, he’s not wrong.  
  
“Sure you do, darling. Now tell me, when I discover the one your heart desires, what will you do? I’m envisioning something like out of a play — your eyes will meet, you’ll cross the room and leap into their arms, the music will swell.” He pauses, thinking again. “Maybe I should bring my lute, for that.”  
  
“The lute is barred from going and you know it,” you tell him. It’s easier to ignore his imaginings of your love life than to reply to them. “Otherwise you’ll spend the whole time trying to upstage whomever they’ve chosen to play.”  
  
“I don’t think you mean ‘trying,’ dear,” he says archly, and you laugh.  
  
“Of course, what was I thinking,” you amend. “You’ll spend the whole time outplaying the band, and then you won’t do any of the socializing I know you enjoy.” The sarcastic lilt to your voice just happens, not even entirely intentional.  
  
He pulls your hair to the side innocuously and then huffs a sharp breath over your ear in a way that has you nearly jumping off the stool with surprise, and you whip around to face him even as he’s making ‘no, don’t do that’ noises.   
  
“What was that for?” you ask, giving him your best frown.   
  
“You’re not allowed to know me so well,” he decrees, pushing on your shoulder to turn you back around. “How will I surprise you, otherwise?”  
  
“Are you _trying_ to surprise me?” you ask, even as you give in. “Also, I don’t think that counts as ‘knowing you well.’ I just remember when we were still students and you would outplay everyone we met, given the opportunity.”  
  
“And out-sing,” he adds, rubs one hand down the side of your neck and onto your shoulder like you’re a startled animal, or like an apology.   
  
“And out-sing, yes. Heaven forbid I not stroke your ego for one moment,” you say, but it has no heat in it. Behind you, he makes a choked noise that would have you turning, except he’s still touching your shoulder. “Are you alright?”  
  
“Ah, yes. Just — had a thought.”  
  
“Don’t strain anything, please, we do have somewhere to be tonight,” you remark smartly, and he huffs again behind you. At least this time it’s at the back of your head.  
  
“You are so sour this evening, my dear. What has gotten into you?”  
  
“You haven’t even _seen_ sour yet, I promise.”  
  
“And why is that?”  
  
“We’re going to go to this party, see all kinds of people I don’t know or particularly like… I’m not looking forward to it. And you aren’t even playing, so who knows what the music will be like.”  
  
“How sweet you are to me, to say things like that. But I promised you that you wouldn’t have to talk to anyone you didn’t want to. We could even pretend you lost your voice, if you wanted. Make a game of it?”  
  
“You being stuck to my side sounds like it defeats the fun of you going, though,” you say, even though the last thing you want to do is watch him make rounds and catch affection from everyone in the room.   
  
“Don’t worry about it so much, darling. If you stop having a good time, we can leave early.”  
  
“Hmm. Maybe,” you allow, even though you know you’ll weather a lot of things just for him.  
  
“Sometimes you remind me so much of Geralt,” he says, and he ties something off at the back of your head, moves on to somewhere else. You can only imagine what you’re going to look like when he’s done, but you aren’t worried.  
  
“And why is that? Is that a bad thing?”  
  
“That could _never_ be a bad thing. Like the time…”

Jaskier spends the rest of the time he’s doing your hair telling you stories about his witcher. You’ve heard quite a few already, but somehow he has an endless well of more that you haven’t. Or maybe you’ve heard them once and forgotten already, but you feel like you’re hanging off of his every word, so that is unlikely in itself.  
  
He tells you about how Geralt will linger in a tavern just long enough to eat and drink before leaving — whether it’s to go up to their room for the night, or to go back outside. How Jaskier ends up doing most of the talking to the White Wolf’s apparently numerous fans, but Geralt never seems to take issue with it. How sometimes they’ll go a full day traveling without Geralt speaking more than a handful of words to him, content to sit in silence. How Geralt’s favorite conversational partner is his horse, Roach, which is actually such a sweet detail that it squeezes your heart.   
  
“I bet he appreciates you a lot,” you tell him, closing your eyes shut tightly. You shouldn’t be this emotional about his obvious love for his muse. It’s not even borne of jealousy — more of the idea that you remind him of his witcher, and that must mean you mean something significant to him, too. He wouldn’t have used those words lightly, you know very well.  
  
“And why is that? Not that it’s not true, but I would love to know what you’re thinking.” He pats on you on the shoulders. “And we’re done, let me see.”  
  
You turn to face him and the sensitive wobbling of your lip comes back full force despite your attempts to control your face. “If we’re so alike, then it must be because I appreciate you more than I can say, too,” you tell him. When he moves as if he’s going to reach out and touch you, you throw your arms around his shoulders. You’ve been trying to avoid hugs for the last several days, but —   
  
“Are you crying? Dear girl, please don’t be sad.”  
  
“I’m not sad,” you insist into the fabric of his shirt where you’ve buried his face. He’s holding you back just as tightly, and it soothes the anxious animal in your heart just a little. “I’m just… thinking about how much I’ll miss you, when you’re gone. And I don’t want you to feel taken for granted while you’re here.”  
  
“I’ll return with time,” he says, smoothing a hand down your spine. “Especially if you’re willing to put me up again.”  
  
“I’d house you for the rest of my life,” you tell him, too-honest, and he laughs a little.  
  
“You may regret saying that to me, someday.”  
  
“Unlikely,” you return, sniffling heavily. With one hand, you surreptitiously wipe your eyes.   
  
“Come on, it’s time for us to get dressed. And you’ll need some cool water on your face, or you’ll get all splotchy.”  
  
You follow his direction, feeling wrung out even though nothing has happened. You go to the other room and wipe your eyes with a damp cloth, taking the time to look at your hair in the mirror.It’s pulled away from your face, with what feels like a halo braided around the back of your head. It’s already leagues more intricate than anything you could have done alone. It’s beautiful.

“Sorry for crying,” you tell him when you return, finding him already dressed. Had you been gone so long?”  
  
“Nothing to be sorry for, I assure you. I know these have been a few emotionally fraught days for you. Soon we’ll have resolved the trial of your heart, and you’ll know peace again.”  
  
“You seem to think it’s so easy,” you say, sighing. His hands linger at the fastenings of his doublet as he looks at you. You feel — judged, though not cruelly.  
  
“I do,” he says, nods. “But if you truly don’t want to go… Or if you want me to drop it entirely, just say the word.” He puts his hands on his hips, then, and something about the expression on his face warms you all the way through. Gods, he’s such a good friend to you.  
  
“No, I— I want to go. For you.”  
  
“And for your mystery lover?” he asks, as if he’s feeling you out, and —  
  
“And for them too, sure,” you allow, rolling your eyes. Just focus on your friendship with him. It’ll be easy. “But mostly for my dearest friend. You deserve a fun night. I’m sure you’ll find all kinds of people to catch your eye when we get there, and I wouldn’t have you miss out on that.”  
  
He smiles at you and your heart flips despite your attempts to stop it. Soon, you hope, you’ll be immune to that. He does up the last button — or, at least, the last button he’ll bother to fasten, to be realistic — and then he puts his hands on his hips.  
  
“And how are we supposed to go if you aren’t even dressed yet, hm?”  
  
Ah, right.

Getting into the dress is, in theory, not that difficult. It still fits like a dream, even though you’re sure you’ve put on some weight now that Jaskier is helping (forcing) you to consistently eat.  
  
“Can you give me a hand?” you call back through the cracked door, unwilling to move and run the risk of tripping as you are.  
  
“What’s that?” Jaskier comes through the door combing through his hair with his fingers, and he makes a noise at (what you assume) is your state of undress. “Do you need some help with that?”  
  
“If it’s not too much trouble.” You sigh. “I didn’t bother doing them up when I tried it on, but… We’ll be here forever if we have to wait on me to do this alone.”  
  
“But of course. I’m here to help. I’m basically your handmaiden, at this point.”  
  
“You would do well to remember your place, then,” you harrumph with a sniff, making him laugh. You love making him laugh. It _almost_ feels as if nothing has changed at all.

Except everything feels different as he does apply himself to the task of the tiny fastenings. The line of the dress would be ruined by wearing a chemise — supposedly some new style, according to Antoni at the time — and so you are otherwise bare to the waist. Jaskier’s fingers and thumbs brush skin every so often as he does this favor for you, and you force yourself to… To keep it together. Not to shiver under his touch. It’s just him helping you out; you aren’t allowed to give it more weight than it truly has.   
  
It feels like an eternity passes while you stand there, stiff as a board, letting him put the dress on you the rest of the way. Eventually he’s at the topmost one, at the back of your neck, and you feel something like peace again when he lets you go.  
  
“Alright, show off for me,” he insists, stepping back away from you. You shift your shoulders to check the fit before spinning in place, watching it move. Gods, you love this dress.  
  
“What do you think?” you ask, swinging back and forth out of a childish desire to see the skirt fly. “And do be honest, if it’s terrible I’ll have to give Antoni some strong words.” You would never, in actuality, but… You’re allowed to fish for a compliment or two, right? Since you never dress up?  
  
“You are going to be the most beautiful person in that room,” he says, and you learn that if you look past his shoulder instead of at his face, your heart mostly stays where it’s supposed to be. Regardless, you can’t stop the blush that the sincerity in his voice brings to your face.  
  
“Surely not more beautiful than you,” you suggest, because you know he will appreciate it, and you can see his smile in your periphery.  
  
“Perhaps we will be most beautiful together,” he says, and then offers you his arm. “The one who holds your heart may well approach you before I ever get to find them myself,” he continues, and — well, you let that one slide off of you. You feel lovely, your arm is in his, and you’ve already talked yourself into this party. You’ll worry about the consequences of your game with him later.

It turns out that the consequences of challenging him come much more quickly than you could have expected. One of the first people you run into upon entry to the hall — which has more or less been turned into a place to dance, eat, and be merry — is Shani. And you’re still holding his arm, because _of course_ you are, and the look she turns on you as she approaches is… much too sharp.  
  
“Happy to see you lovebirds made it,” she says, wicked smirk on her lips as she tips the glass of wine in your direction.  
  
“Good to see you too, Shani,” Jaskier says. He looks at your face — you feel him do it, too aware of him not to — and then he looks out at the rest of the room. Much of the faculty that intends to attend, to your knowledge, looks to be already present. There’s a small band playing in the corner, too. You’re not sure if they were hired or just offered to play — these creative types, bards and actors and the lot, always seem to take opportunities to perform.  
  
Shani looks away from you after you give her a tight smile and you take the opportunity to try to subtly break away. Your shifting hand on his arm catches his attention, though, and —  
  
“Oh, right.” Jaskier says, bringing her judging gaze back to you, lowering his arm and giving you a friendly smile. “Won’t do to have your beloved see us linked together, hm?”  
  
“…right,” you murmur. Shani is watching you like a hawk, taking it all in, and you wonder what, exactly, is so interesting here to her? Perhaps she’s just curious about Jaskier’s friends; Gods know she’s closer to him than to you. You don’t normally, or generally dislike her, but right now you wish she was anywhere else.  
  
“What’s this about your beloved?” she asks, taking another drink. You jealously wish you had your own glass of wine, to hide behind if nothing else. You’re too sober to be living through this second-worst-case scenario. The first worst case, of course, is Jaskier finding out.  
  
“Ah… How to explain it?” Jaskier seems to be taking his self-appointed guard job very seriously, for which you are grateful. You don’t want to commit the faux pas of brushing her off, but you’d nearly strained something explaining it to Jaskier, who knows you better than anyone. You don’t think you could put it into words for a stranger.   
  
“—has someone she cares very deeply for, and I’ve spent the last several days guessing names, honestly. But I think we’ll have progress tonight! If we don’t find them in an embrace by the end of the evening, I truly will be a failed matchmaker,” Jaskier is saying, and you — You don’t want him feeling a failure.  
  
“Don’t worry about it, Jaskier,” you tell him, tugging his sleeve so you catch his attention over the noise in the hall. “They’re not here.”  
  
“Not yet, anyway,” he agrees. “But the night is very young. We have time.” His optimism is boundless and you frown despite trying your best to enjoy this. Things have already gone sour, and while it’s not Shani’s fault it still kind of… feels like it is. Of course your silly games and feelings can’t exist in a vacuum. You were foolish to think they ever could.  
  
“Say, why don’t you go get some drinks?” Shani asks, giving Jaskier a look that even you can tell is very pointed. That he looks back at you for permission before he goes is a mark of seriousness to his duty that you never really expected him to take.  
  
“That sounds good,” you tell him. “I’ll be fine; I’m not some wilting flower.” You try to smile.  
  
“I know you’re not,” he says, too soft in the face for you to bear looking at. “I’ll be right back.”

“So,” Shani says as soon as he’s out of earshot. “What the hell is going on here?”  
  
“Hmm. Party?” you try, and she rolls her eyes at you for your effort.  
  
“Don’t play dumb; it doesn’t suit you.” You’re not sure if that’s a compliment or not, but before you can think about it she’s carrying on. “What is going on with you and Jaskier?”  
  
“I told you weeks ago, we aren’t involved,” you say, and she sighs at you. Takes a drink of wine and rubs the bridge of her nose after.  
  
“Yes, and that was weeks ago. Just because he’s a blind man doesn’t mean _I_ can’t see the way you’re looking at him.”  
  
“I’m not looking at him in any kind of way, thank you.”  
  
“Sure you’re not. And you didn’t just walk into this party hanging off his harm?”  
  
“I wasn’t hanging,” you insist. “And it was just — polite. We left my rooms like that.”  
  
“And he’s been staying with you for weeks now. Tell me, is he sleeping on your couch? Your floor?” Her pursuit of this topic is dogged.  
  
“We share the bed out of politeness and mutual respect,” you say, fumbling for words. It sounds fake to even your own ears; you don’t think there’s anything polite in the way you relish pressing up against his back at night.  
  
“And you’re _sure_ nothing happened?” she asks, eyebrow raising. “Because I remember stories of how you would barely let Eryk into your rooms.”  
  
“That was years ago. And Eryk was… not suited to me.” Oh, right. “And yes, nothing has happened.”  
  
“But _someone_ else is suited to you now, hm?”  
  
Behind her, through the crowd, you see Jaskier coming back. His grey doublet shines like something precious in the torchlight.  
  
“Can we — please just drop it?” She sees you looking, she must, because she turns to look his way as well.  
  
“Oh, Jaskier, good, you’re back!” There’s terrible dread in your stomach borne entirely of fear of what she could say. What havoc she could wreak on your private, secret happiness. But instead of anything incriminating, she just says: “I’ve got some rounds to make, I’ll see you two later.”

Jaskier presses a mug into your hand as she leaves, and you watch her go with some trepidation. “Well that is strange,” is what he says, standing close to your side. And: “You would not believe how many people I came across that wanted to talk to me.”

“What do you mean, I wouldn’t believe it? You’re famous now, aren’t you?” You gently elbow him. “You’re the one telling me you’ve overhauled your witcher’s reputation.” It’s so much easier to talk to him than it was to Shani.  
  
“Well, yes, but… I suppose it is different when it’s people I once knew.”  
  
“And I can’t help but notice that you must not have stopped to talk to any of them.”  
  
“I had to hurry back, didn’t I? She must have said something terrible to you, I can tell.”  
  
“…you can tell?”  
  
“Mmhm,” he hums into his wine glass. He loops an arm around your shoulders then, guiding you to the edge of the hall where some benches have been pushed out of the way. “Call it intuition, if you want, but I can absolutely tell.”  
  
You shrug, unwilling to lie but unwilling to discuss your conversation, too.  
  
“It’s really alright if you want to go socialize, you know,” you tell him instead. “I _am_ a functioning adult; I can make polite conversation with anyone that decides they need to talk to me. And the music is nice.”  
  
“…the music is terrible, darling, but that’s neither here nor there. What friend would I be to leave you alone?”  
  
“A friend that tries to enjoy himself when I ask him to?” You can help smiling up at him from the seat you’ve taken on the bench. “I mean, I definitely didn’t come to this party for me, so you may as well enjoy it.”  
  
“…are you sure?”   
  
“I’m sure.” He still looks so doubtful, though… “Besides, perhaps that person you’ve been looking for is just scared away by your charisma, and he’s afraid to talk to me.”  
  
“Oh, so it is a ‘he,’ hm?” Oh, hell. You’ve been very good about not identifying the gender of your ‘beloved’ up until now. Later, when you’re kicking yourself for the slip, you’ll just have to blame it on the stress of this event.  
  
“Sure,” you answer. You take a drink of your wine, so that you might not say something else foolish.  
  
“Well, if you put it that way, I suppose I would be remiss in my duty to your love life to stay here scaring your lover away,” he says. He looks out toward the room and you inexplicably immediately miss the weight of his eyes on you. “If you need me… Don’t be afraid to let me know, alright?”  
  
“If it will make you happy,” you allow. “But I have been surviving functions for several years without you now. I’ll be okay.”  
  
“You will _not_ get me to believe you’ve been attending parties these last few years, my lady. But nice try.” He makes promises to come back around in a little while, and you try to relax.

Despite your general aloof demeanor, a few of your colleagues do come by to speak to you. Not that you really _want_ to talk about work outside of work, but you know other people feel compelled to speak to their acquaintances in a way you don’t, and it’s your only common ground. You even catch Karina’s eye, once, and she’s apparently drunk enough that she just smiles back at you.  
  
The worst part about the few people that have come along to talk to you, though, is not the frivolities. It’s the fact that you can _feel_ Jaskier watching you talk to them, trying to assess whether this is your mystery lover or not. You never should have proposed that game to him. Should have just said you didn’t want to talk about it, and then you wouldn’t be in any of this mess.  
  
After Dominik leaves you to go back to his entourage, apparently satisfied by your opinion of the latest treatise that has been loaned to the library, you let yourself zone out. Maybe if you look incredibly bored, no one will bother you further. It’s hard to get to that point, half-listening to the music and half-looking at anywhere other than where you know, like a compass pointing north, Jaskier stands. 

When Shani returns, some indeterminable amount of time later, she scares you almost out of your seat.   
  
“Don’t panic, now,” she says, settling in next to you with another smirk. It’s a look she wears very well, you are learning.  
  
“Wasn’t expecting to see you again,” you admit, trying to calm your racing heart. You really had been out of it. “Haven’t you tormented me enough?”  
  
“Oh, don’t be dramatic. I went to get you something, after all.” From a pocket she pulls a phial of thin red liquid, like dyed water.  
  
“What is that?” you ask, but you do take it when she presses it into your curious hand.  
  
“On the house, since I hurt your feelings.”   
  
It takes a long moment to parse her words. “That doesn’t tell me _what_ it is, Shani. But thank you, nonetheless.”  
  
“You really are so sheltered,” she says then, and — “Don’t take that the wrong way, now. But anyone who’s thinking about having a _lover_ ,” and the way she says the word is like it’s something too-sweet, saccharine, “knows how to make sure they don’t end up with child after a tryst or two.”  
  
“And you’re just giving this to me?” You look at the vial, resolving not to argue the idea of you having a lover with her. When you look back up at her, her red hair has curled around her cheekbones and the look in her eyes is so — intense, really, that all you can do is tuck it away out of sight.  
  
“Take one mouthful the morning after. Wash it down with water if you have to, but wine will probably make you sick,” she instructs, and —  
  
“Shani… Not that I don’t appreciate it, but… I don’t _have_ sex, I don’t need this.” You just can’t ever stop yourself from arguing with people, can you?  
  
“Just trust me,” she insists, and she turns that vivid stare away from you and out to the rest of the hall. “And you should think about telling him, before he leaves in the spring.”  
  
“What?” What does she think she’s saying?  
  
“That is when he’s going back on the road, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yes, but — tell him what?” You won’t admit a single thing to her that she doesn’t already know. Your heart can’t bear the thought of it getting out because of your loose lips.  
  
“I meant it when I said not to play dumb,” she reiterates, bumping your shoulder in an act much more assertive than Jaskier usually does. You give her your blankest look, and she groans with annoyance. “I can see the way you look at him.” She gestures to where he’s talking to a couple of younger ladies. “It’s like they do, but worse.”  
  
“…you’ve really got me read, haven’t you?” The idea of being _worse_ makes your stomach twist in a sick way you thought you’d mostly gotten over. The anxiety of all of this is killing you. “Don’t you think it’s stupid?”  
  
“What I think doesn’t really matter, does it?” she says. “And besides, you could do so much worse for yourself.” _Like Eryk_ goes unspoken, but you sort of appreciate it all the same.  
  
“And what if I ruin our friendship? He could have anyone he wants. And does, often, actually.” Your mind is whirling. “Or even if… If he was amenable, to me, it’s not as if I would get to keep him.”  
  
She laughs at you then, choking on the word ‘amenable’ like it’s a joke, and you give her a sidelong look. “…No one is going to stay forever. Don’t you think it’s better to take what you can while you can get it?”  
  
“That’s no reassurance,” you say, feeling your shoulders slump. You’re ruining the line of your dress, right now, and you can’t even bring yourself to care.   
  
“Just tell him, and stop worrying about it. I don’t want to have to treat you for an ulcer.”  
  
“That’s easy for you to say!” you exclaim. She laughs again as a few heads turn in your direction, curious.  
  
“You’re right. It is.” She stands, waves her fingers at you as she leaves. “Good luck.”

“So I saw that Shani came back to talk to you again,” Jaskier says, later. He’s been making his rounds and you’ve had the time to calm down, and — you’re just grateful he hadn’t come over immediately after your outburst.  
  
“Yeah, she… Had some things to say.”  
  
“I know you said ‘he’ earlier, but that wasn’t just a clever ruse to get me off the trail of a stern doctor, was it?”  
  
“No,” you say, sighing. This evening feels like talking in circles. “No, she just… I don’t know what she wanted, really.”  
  
“But you’re okay?”  
  
“Oh.” You look up at him — he hasn’t taken a seat yet, or maybe won’t, you know he has too much energy to be still most times, and he’s just here to check on you like he said he would. “I’m okay.” His expression is that same heart-twisting soft one, and you’re not immune yet. He’s always so gentle when you look at him; maybe that’s a consequence of the lens of your affection.  
  
Behind him, around you, the band changes its tune, its tempo entirely. Jaskier cocks his head to one side, as if listening, and then holds out a hand to you. You take it, because of course you do. You’re weak, that way.  
  
“Would you dance with me?”  
  
“You… want me to?” Have you slipped and hit your head? This can’t be real.  
  
“I won’t complain even if you step on my feet,” he offers magnanimously, and that brings you back to reality, scoffing at the very idea.  
  
“I think I should be the one saying that. I’ve seen the way you get when you’re performing, after all.” More than once he’s gotten too-into a song and has jumped onto your table, or perched on the arm of the couch to croon some ballad at you.  
  
“And you don’t think my shows for a private audience are different from those in public?”  
  
“I would hope the ones for the public are better,” you tease, and he makes a dramatic, dying noise. He throws his free hand over his heart.  
  
“You have _wounded_ me, darling, and I may never recover.” You get to your feet then, still holding his hand. You’re not thinking about it.  
  
“Guess I’ll have to dance by myself, then. Pity, I do think we’d look good together.” Something about his energy makes it so easy to obviously play-act your distance. You wish it was easier to truly act that unaffected by him.  
  
He perks back up immediately, glancing backwards before leading you out to the dance floor. 

Most students ended up taking a class or two that covered the basics of dance, fundamentals and the like, but that was… a very long time ago for you now. It comes back like muscle memory when his other hand comes to your waist, though, and you let yourself duck your head to watch the swirling hem of your dress instead of thinking about being so close to him.   
  
His palm in yours is warm, and though you know he has calluses from his instrument you can’t feel the, not with your fingers folded together as they are. He lets you loose into a twirl that has your heart leaping even as you follow through, and when you come back to a place far too close to his chest, you can’t help but breathe a happy laugh. With time as distance, it was easy to forget how much you liked dancing. Performative without being a performance, it always felt like.   
  
“I think we do,” Jaskier says at some point, and it’s been so long since you spoke that you can only look up at him blankly.   
  
“Look good together. I think we do.” Your heart stutters in your chest even as he spins you again, and it’s only the ingrained knowledge that has you stepping smoothly.   
  
“Well… That’s just because someone matched himself to my embroidery,” you return, feeling off-kilter and not just because you’ve been spun around.   
  
“Matching myself to you is only good taste, darling,” he murmurs, audible over the music just because of proximity, and — oh, your heart hurts.  
  
“I think I need to take a break,” you tell him as the music changes, and there’s a young woman you’ve caught eye of that has been watching for too long not to be interested in him. She cuts in seamlessly when you leave, as if she’s not a stranger, and you leave as fast as your feet can carry you.

Outside the hall, night has fallen. The stars are bright overhead, the moon a crescent shadow of its former self. The university prides itself on the appearance of the campus, and it is this pride that gives you a bench to sit on. It’s cold out now, which… of course it is, naturally, but it feels colder than it ever has before.  
  
Your heart is still thrumming and it does hurt, in a way that you know must be all in your head. Knowing it doesn’t help, though, and it feels worse than any other ache you have ever had. Pressing against your breastbone doesn’t relieve it. At least when your throat gets tight with tears, that sting is some distraction from the internal pain. 

Of course you have given in and started crying when Jaskier comes out to find you, because you’re weak and sensitive and have had too much happen in the last few hours to keep it together. You don’t want to think about him, or what he means to you, or what his words would mean if he were saying them to someone else. Someone that he could lie with and then go about his life afterward, someone that he could get warmth and love out of with results better than squeezing water from a stone.   
  
Of course you are tear-streaked and shivering when footsteps sound in the grass around the corner of the hedges you’ve hidden yourself away in, and you’re hoping it’s Shani with another tidbit of useless advice. Or even Karina, to get underneath your skin with her words. But it’s not, of course.  
  
At the sight of Jaskier’s face — which goes from curious to worried in an instant — gets under your skin in an entirely different way.   
  
“What happened? Are you alright?” That he comes over to kneel in front of you on the stone shouldn’t make your heart skip a beat. He’s just being a good friend to you and you… have been a terrible friend in return.  
  
You can’t look away from him, not with him kneeling, and when you go to cover your face with your hands to hide, he catches you by the wrists. “Dearest, I mean it. Whatever is the matter? I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”  
  
The twisting, jumping feeling of your stomach gets worse with his attention fully on you, with your weeping exposed. Big and ugly sobs try their best to leave your chest, but you won’t make this worse — won’t draw any further pity. You know he pities you already far too much. You bite your lips shut instead, chest heaving as your sadness tries to leave by any means it can.   
  
Jaskier is still holding your hands — holding your wrists, nothing so intimate as hands — and you can feel his eyes on you. Hot tears are dripping down your face, saltwater seeping into the fabric of your dress and _oh_ , he does match you, it’s not just a joke. This is horrible, for him to be such a good friend as to keep you company through everything he has; to be your other half when he could have been as ostentatious as you know he likes to be; to be out here on his knees when he could be inside enjoying a party you know he’d like.  
  
For him to be all these things and for you to be yearning for more, desperate for a touch that means something _different_ , that means something _special_ … His friendship should be special enough. It is special enough. Why couldn’t you have wanted something ‘more’ out of a stranger? Out of someone who doesn’t mean so much? Why do you have to be like this?  
  
Eventually you cry yourself out, emotions raw and laid bare in the middle of the university’s garden. The fact that when you open your eyes again, Jaskier is still kneeling in front of you — it’s almost enough to make you cry all over again. His head is bowed, hands still on your wrists, and he can’t be comfortable there.  
  
“I’m sorry,” you rasp to the top of his head, to the part of his soft hair.   
  
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he says, and he slips his hands into yours as he shifts on the ground. His grip is firm, warm. He’s always warm. And you’re always cold — in every way.   
  
“I feel like I do,” you say. A dam is leaking somewhere in your chest, and the words are coming out whether you want them to or not.  
  
“You haven’t done anything wrong, darling,” he insists, and looks up at you with concern very plain on his face. It hurts just a little more to see that. You’re almost full to the brim with pain, afraid to spill over again.  
  
“I don’t think you understand.” Every thought and every sentence spoken feels stilted, like a struggle. You don’t want to say anything and yet you don’t know if you could live with yourself if you continue to keep it in.   
  
“Will you help me, then?” Even in the low light of the moon, his eyes shine a lovely blue. You have to look away from him to get composure to speak.  
  
“I… lied to you,” you murmur. Your throat feels tight again, heart thrumming.  
  
“About what? The song I’ve been working on? Don’t worry; I know it needs work.” His attempt at levity falls flat. You can’t even give him a smile.  
  
“About the person I was interested in.” His expression goes stiff, strange, and your heart is a stone in your stomach at the sight. This is all going according to expectation. Of course he’s going to be upset with you. But you _have_ to do this.  
  
“…so there wasn’t anyone after all? It was just a… hypothetical person?”  
  
“No, Jaskier,” you say, and under other circumstances his ability to reach the wrong conclusion would make you smile. But… “No, it’s… worse.”  
  
“Is it Karina? Because I know you guys have a bit of a love-hate relationship, but you don’t have to cry over it.”  
  
“ _No_ ,” you say, firm with no bite, and you tilt your head back to hopefully keep your emotions at bay. “No, it’s not Karina.”  
  
“Well who is it then? I still think Shani likes you more than she lets on.”  
  
You shoot to your feet, invigorated with something stronger than sadness — shame. “It’s _you_ , Jaskier.” You try to step away but his grip is strong, and he makes a noise as if he’s been gutted. This is why you didn’t want to tell him. All of this was. “I’m sorry,” you say. “For misleading you, and — wasting your time, and misusing our friendship, and —”  
  
“Stop,” he says, voice sounding strange. You look anywhere but at him. “Don’t apologize to me.”  
  
“And why not?” You shouldn’t be angry with him. You’re just angry. It’s your fault that you’re horrible. If he’d only let you go. Things would be fine.   
  
A choked laugh breaks in his chest and you look at him, then, worried through your own anger with yourself. God, why can’t you care about him — not less, but differently? Why couldn’t this have been easy?  
  
“You’re being honest this time, aren’t you?” he asks, something wry in the thickness of his words.  
  
“I… yes, I am.” As much as you hate yourself to admit it.  
  
“You promise?” Why does he care so much? Just take it at face value and let you go, please.  
  
“I promise,” you vow anyway, unable to look anywhere _but_ at him now. He’s looking back at you, eyes seeing right into you, and —  
  
There’s nothing upset on his face. And you would know if there was, you think. You can read him like a book. But the expression he’s wearing is — is like every holiday come at once, and maybe his birthday too. Like how you’d felt when you found him in the hallway, months ago, knocking at your door.

“Can I kiss you?” is what he says, and —  
  
“What?” You must have misheard him. But he’s still holding your hands, and you can’t get away, and — do you really want to get away?  
  
“It’s okay to say no. But I want to, if you’ll let me.” He takes a step nearer, and you don’t pull away from him again. You feel mesmerized, as if you’re having an out of body experience. As, if you could pinch yourself right now, you would wake up from a dream.  
  
“…sure,” you get out eventually, words caught somewhere in your throat. You watch him swallow, watch the way he takes a steadying breath and blinks his eyes closed for a moment, and then —   
  
Oh, he really is going to kiss you. One hand releases yours to come to touch your face instead, a solid press that stabilizes you just enough to keep you steady. You lick your lips, looking at him looking at you, and you wonder if this is real.  
  
He’s just tall enough that he has to duck his head to kiss you, and your poor heart may stop still in your chest from the way it’s working right now. His lips are soft, and he’s confident, and you don’t know when you ended up chest-to-chest with him but when you open your eyes again you’re wrapped around him like you may never let go. You feel dizzy, short on air, and his chest is heaving too.

“Is this really happening?” you murmur in the space between your mouths, and he makes a considering noise in response.  
  
He leans in to bump his nose against yours, a tickle of a motion that has you giddily bumping him in return, rubbing the points of your noses together even as you catch your breath, sharing air.   
  
And then — you see it as it happens — he angles his head, touches his lips to yours again, and you may swoon a little in his arms.  
  
This time, you can’t seem to stop kissing him. Even when you part for breath it’s just that — for a breath — before you’re coming back to him, again and again and again. Your blood is humming and your hands are in his hair and at least one of his is on your waist and —

Laughter spills out into the nighttime air, breaking the moment and bringing you back to your senses.  
  
You separate just enough to be able to resist his magnetic pull again, and just… _look_ at him. He’s wearing an expression that says ‘can you believe whoever this is, to be interrupting us?’ which makes you laugh, and soon you’re just holding on to one another, laughing your hearts out.  
  
“We should go home,” is what he eventually says, when the hysteria has passed. He scrubs a hand down his face and you watch him, thinking about how it makes you feel for him to call it ‘home,’ even though you know he won’t be there forever. Maybe Shani was right.  
  
“Lead the way, my good man,” you say, but instead he — takes your arm in his, just like he’d done when you left your rooms. This time, you’re not too proud to call it anything other than hanging off of him. You don’t want to be any further from Jaskier than you have to be, ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone for reading! had a bit of a technical-planning mishap that required tucking all the parts together into one chaptered story instead of a series, so if you think something is strange here, that's why!  
> there are just two more chapters after this one, both of which are already written. i'm trying to pace myself from throwing it all out there at once, but we will see a culmination of this story come hell or high water.  
> also, fair warning, next chapter goes right into explicit territory because of who i am as a person.
> 
> please feel free to share any SPAG errors you find with me. all mistakes are my own -- can you imagine sharing this self-indulgent mess with a beta? ahaha;;
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://ragequilt.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/ahrhi_169)!


	5. fingertips electric in their reaching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You need to talk about... this, with Jaskier. But passion is not so flat after all, and much more pressing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is 98% a gratuitous sex scene with... Well, I guess we can call it character or relationship development sprinkled in. I did say at the beginning of all this that it was self-indulgent, right? ;;  
> That being said, I struggled with this chapter in a handful of ways. I also... am pretty sure this is the first legitimate sex scene I've ever published? Ah well. No sense getting worried about it I guess. If you don't want to read this chapter but would like a synopsis of the actually important parts, let me know!
> 
> chapter title from Typewriter Series #2842 by Tyler Knott Gregson --  
> 'How we learn, we of  
> young fingertips electric  
> in their reaching,'

“We should probably talk,” Jaskier suggests when you’re closed away in the sanctity of your quarters again, out of public and out of the cold winter air.  
  
“Probably,” you agree, unable to stop smiling, dazzled, at the side of his head. It’s as if every feeling from the last _who_ knows how long has been freed up for expression, and they’re all coming out of your face. “I’d… like to know where we stand.” If only all that emotion could give you some confidence, you’d be unstoppable.  
  
He looks back at you and his face breaks into a smile, and suddenly he’s leaning in to nuzzle his nose against yours again. “You’re too sweet. I can’t resist you,” he says, laughing, and you tug on his arm to pull him closer and look up into his eyes.  
  
“You seemed to be resisting me quite well for the last, oh… _forever_ of our lives,” you say, mostly joking. Half-joking. Partially joking.  
  
“I try not to cast my net in still waters,” is what he says, and —  
  
“What does that even _mean_?” you laugh.  
  
“You never seemed interested. And I appreciated your friendship more than I wanted to bed you. Especially once we talked about… you know.” You do, in fact, know.  
  
“But you… do want to bed me?”  
  
“Darling, I want to do everything you’ll let me,” he says, and then — “That was probably too much, wasn’t it?” A nervous laugh bubbles out of his mouth.  
  
“I would let you do anything you wanted, I think,” you tell him. “I trust you, Jaskier.” You lean up to press a kiss to his mouth, feeling emboldened by proximity. It’s been a long time since you’ve kissed anyone, and Jaskier’s mouth may have ruined you for anyone else, ever.  
  
“That’s a lot of trust,” he says when you part. “I hope I’ve earned it.” There’s a soft furrow to his brow that you wish you could smooth away. How sweet of him.  
  
“I know you won’t abuse it. Of course you’ve earned it, you silly man.”

“What _am_ I going to do with you?” he muses aloud, stepping so much closer that you have to take a step backwards to maintain your balance, and — oh, that’s the door at your back.  
  
Well… “Ravish me, perhaps? I’ve heard all these stories about your… prowess,” you tease, unable to turn your smile into a smirk as intended.   
  
“If you insist, my dear,” he teases in return, voice faux-haughty, and his hands come to your hips like when you were dancing. Your heart is already twirling on its own again.  
  
Your brain goes somewhere else while he kisses you; you get lost in it. It’s a push and pull of warmth and softness, of the hot-slick slide of his tongue against your lips before you open your mouth to return the touch. You know you’re making noises, can’t ignore the smacking separation of your lips when you break off to breathe. You can’t hear much over your blood rushing in your ears but it feels like what making music must be like.  
  
His doublet is open — when did he open it? Probably the party, actually, he’s hopeless like that — and you slide your hands into it, touching his sides through his undershirt. That he trembles under your hands is gratifying, makes you feel larger than life itself.   
  
You want him as close to you as he can get, and that he follows your pulling hands to press you against the door with the full weight of his body is a perfect thing. You groan into his mouth under the pressure of him against you.  
  
His hands are running a path up and down your sides, curling over your hips before coming back again. You want him _so_ much closer.  
  
“Jaskier,” you breathe, feeling too big for your own skin, much too big for the dress. You’re hot all over, and either he’s still shaking in your hands or you’re the one shaking, now.  
  
“Yes, my dear?” He’s kissing down the side of your neck, now, finding a sensitive place behind your ear that makes a shiver race up your spine.   
  
You open your mouth but — what were you going to say, again?  
  
You give up on the thought, holding onto his shoulders for dear life instead. Everywhere his mouth touches is a brand and you’re so sensitive that it feels like you’re bare beneath his hands. Maybe you should be —  
  
“Mm, wait,” you say, breathless, touching the side of his neck. He pulls back, looking up at your face, and — oh, the look on his face. You kiss him without intending to — an action entirely on impulse. He gasps into your mouth, makes a deep noise in his chest that you can feel in your own bones.

“Did you want something?” he asks when you separate to breathe again, and you have to force yourself not to look at his kiss-red mouth.  
  
“We should undress?” is what you say, and if your brain were working you’d kick yourself. But it isn’t, so you just smile soppily at him instead.  
  
“Is that what you want?” It should be illegal for him to be so arousing and so sweet all at once, but the look in his eyes really does make it happen.  
  
“ _Yes_ , please,” you insist, firmly _not_ kissing him even though you really want to. You want to kiss him for the next four weeks straight.  
  
“Let’s go to the bedroom then, hm?” He takes you by the hand, twining your fingers together, and for all that you want to consume him, you’re grateful for the reprieve. If you’ve ever felt like _this_ , before, you don’t remember it. And you think you’d remember this soul-deep thrumming, the energy in your blood and bones. The _want_ , heady and intoxicating in your heart.

You take a seat on the bed to remove your shoes, parting from him so he can do much the same, though he’s not got the skirts to fight with. After, in your periphery, he removes his doublet and — then he’s just staring at you, stood there in his undershirt and his pants.  
  
You can feel him looking almost more than you can see it, but it feels… good. So much feels good, right now.  
  
You set your shoes aside to give him your undivided attention just in time to find him standing _right_ there, in front of you like he’s just been waiting for you to finish.  
  
“Let me help you out of your dress?” Oh.  
  
“Please.” 

He takes you by the hand again, helps you to your feet. It’s so gentle, as if he thinks you’re skittish, or — something delicate. Maybe you are.  
  
He comes to stand behind you, already undoing the fastenings with confidence, and — you were just in this position, a few short hours ago. To be back, and for everything to be turned upside down like this…  
  
The coolness of the air in the room makes you shiver as the clasps come undone, and Jaskier just… keeps touching you.   
  
“I thought far too much about this, earlier,” he murmurs, breaking the silence in the room.  
  
“What?” You have a hard time breaking focus from the small, gentle brushes of his thumbs and fingers against your back.   
  
“When I buttoned you up, earlier,” he elaborates, clearing up nothing for your fuzzy mind.  
  
“What about it?” Your own voice is hushed, as if speaking too loudly may break something.  
  
“I thought about who might be helping you out of this, tonight. About how lucky they’d be.” He rubs his thumb across your spine with something more like purpose and it makes all your hair stand on end to feel it.  
  
“Is that… all you were thinking?” He’s been a mystery this whole time and — part of you wants to know everything. The rest of you is hyper-focused on his touch, on the weight of his attention. That searing attraction from before has started to simmer, but you don’t think it’s ever going to truly go cold.

“I thought about being able to do this,” he says, and rubs both hands up your back, beneath either side of the dress. You suck in a breath and can’t seem to let it back out, not as he pushes the material off to either side. He lays a kiss on your shoulder blade. “You look so soft, but I wanted to know for sure.”

His hands come back down, retracing their path, and you force your breath out as they do. Jaskier just… winds you up, and he’s not even doing anything. His mouth touches the back of your neck, starts a trail of hot kisses down your spine. It’s a distraction from his hands at the small of your back, undoing the last of the clasps, but you recognize the loosening of the material for what it is.  
  
He puts his mouth where his hands just were and then — it’s gone, and he’s pressing himself up behind you instead. You lean into him, helping him help you out of your sleeves. You don’t even have the presence of mind to be self-conscious, which… had been a distant worry, once.  
  
His hands smooth down the length of your arms, fingers tracing a path of fire. His chin is on your shoulder, like maybe he’s watching you and — you find that you like the idea of that. A lot.   
  
You catch his hands once your arms are fully free of the sleeves. The material of the dress is loose now, falling down around your waist, and you bring his hands to your chest. You want him to touch you there, and you want his reaction.  
  
He lets you do it, makes a noise in your ears as you settle his hands beneath yours on your breasts. Your nipples are pebbled from the cool air and the thrill of being here with him, and he requires no further coaxing to touch you.

You’d never doubted any of his tales of sexual experience, not really, but it’s so different to be the subject of his attention. His hands are something blessed, and you can feel every callus on his fingers on your skin.   
  
You let your head fall back against his shoulder, resting more of your weight against him. That he holds you up without complaint makes you want to press against him more, until he does give, but…  
  
You turn your head to mouth against his neck, instead, because you may want to be on top of him, but not with a head injury. His hands are roaming now, touching your breasts, your ribs, sliding down to edge the fabric of the dress until he can touch the sensitive skin hidden beneath.  
  


“Are you teasing me on purpose?” you murmur, nosing against the soft skin of his neck.  
  
“I would never,” he lies through his teeth, dancing the fingers of one hand across your stomach. He’s gently working a nipple between his fingers, and both things are truly distracting.  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
“I just… want to take my time with you, my dear.” There’s something unsure in his voice, and you pick your head up so that you can drop a kiss on his mouth.

“I told you that I wanted whatever you would give me, earlier, didn’t I?” you say after, resisting the temptation to keep kissing him, and he hums.  
  
“You did,” he agrees. “But I want this to be special.”  
  
“Jaskier…” You stand fully, turning so you can look him in the eye. His hands settle on your hips again, but you can’t think about that right now. “At the risk of sounding like some _romantic_ , I’m here with you. This is already special.”  
  
“Is that so,” he says, looking pleased. “And what is the problem with being romantic?”  
  
“It is so,” you insist. “And it is a quality I love in you, but I don’t think it suits me.” He laughs at that, genuinely, and your heart soars. You’re feeling his hands on you, now, and — “If you aren’t going to finish undressing me, I’m going to do it,” you tell him.  
  
“Oh, you temptress,” he says lowly, edging his hands further down your sides. Once the dress is past the swell of your hips it falls to the ground, pooling at your feet. Your smallclothes are all that remain, and when he looks to you for confirmation, you push them off yourself.   
  
It should feel strange to stand exposed in front of him, but you’re not afraid. He looks like he wants to eat you, and though you have been worried about a thousand things before this started in the courtyard, you cannot find a single thing to concern yourself with now.

“You’re a sight,” he says. “A feast for the eyes.”  
  
“Perhaps I am hungry, too,” you tell him, unsure how to put to words that you would like to be naked, with him, as soon as possible. Your hands curl in the hem of his chemise, and he chuckles.  
  
“Let it be known I’d not deny you anything, darling,” he says, and takes his own clothes off with such efficiency that you almost feel like you’ve missed out. You’ll have to make up for that, some other time.   
  
And besides, seeing him nude does not feel like missing out on anything at all.   
  
“Bed?” he asks, inclining his head in that direction, and you force your eyes away from his body to pay attention.  
  
“I like the sound of that,” you say, and when you shiver it’s not dramatics. You skin is so hot that the cool air feels ever cooler.   
  
You crawl under the covers as he skirts the edge of the bed and gets in on his own side, and you curl together like parentheses beneath the blanket. Maybe it’s sappy to hold hands and kiss as your legs tangle together, but you just can’t bring yourself to care. Maybe his romanticism is rubbing off on you.

By candlelight and low moonlight, he is a vision in as much as you get to look at him. The thatch of his chest hair, freed from his undershirt, begs to be touched — so you do. You can do that now. When you scratch your fingers gently across his breastbone, he hums and pulls you closer with the curve of his leg. He’s so warm.  
  
You get distracted by the idea of wanting to kiss him, in earnest, and when you wrap your arm around his back to pull yourself closer, you find his hard cock between your bodies. It’s not a surprise, not really, but it is one thing to have seen it and another to feel it pressed against your skin. You want him inside you in a way you’ve never wanted anyone else.  
  
You know your face must be flushed. You feel hot all over, just from looking at him, and —  
  
“I almost don’t know what to do with myself, here,” he says lowly, wryly, though he does not let you go.  
  
“What happened to all that experience?” you tease. You’re about as close together as you can get, and you settle your head onto the pillow for a moment, just looking at him. “Even I know the basics, if you need me to hold your hand.”  
  
“You can absolutely hold my hand,” he says, grinning briefly at you before it falls into something more serious. You take him up on the offer, finding his hand that is still caught between your bodies. “This… isn’t just a tryst, with you,” is what he says after, words heavy with meaning. “It means something different to me than… any of my one night stands.” He lets out a deep breath, almost a sigh. “I’m nervous,” he admits, and the bow of his head towards you makes your heart swear.  
  
“Well, there’s no way you can disappoint me,” you offer, rubbing your thumb across his knuckles, your foot up the inside of his calf. “This is already better than any other experience I’ve ever had.”  
  
“Darling that… is so sad,” he laughs, and when he leans into kiss you, you go with it, tugging him until he’s moved to cover your body with his own.   
  
“No,” you say when you break for air, barely holding your thoughts together. “It’s just you, I think.”  
  
That makes him hum, looking pleased, and you settle in beneath him with happiness curling with arousal in your chest. Even up on his hands and knees, the weight of him satisfies something primal in you, instinctive.   
  
You go back to kissing him, after that, because your need to feel him, however you can, is resurfacing with a vengeance.

You lose yourself for some time in him. This is nothing like you’ve ever experienced before — for all that he was nervous? or worried? There is no fumbling or awkwardness.  
  
You’ve coaxed him down to cover you completely and his cock is a hard line where your leg meets your hip, and you especially like the way that he moans sometimes when your bodies come together just right.  
  
He still seems to enjoy when you scratch your fingers through his chest hair, which clarifies at least that hit had not been a reaction of surprise, before. You want to learn everything that he likes, like — when you give his nipples the attention he’d done before, he doesn’t seem to enjoy it as much.  
  
Or, well, not until you fasten your mouth over one, laving away with your tongue, and that changes some things. His cock bumps against your stomach, thanks to your new position, and —  
  
He makes a strangled noise when you get a hand around him, thoughtfully testing your grip. He’s hard like steel, soft like velvet — all those stereotypical lines that you had thought were just a joke, once, from lewd books. When you give him a slow stroke, his cock twitches hard in your hand.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he murmurs, voice hot over your ear.  
  
“Absolutely not,” you return, mouthing back up his chest to his neck. He’s seemed sensitive, there, and rewards you with another strained noise.  
  
“Are you sure you haven’t done this before?” he asks, laughing, and you laugh with him.  
  
“Maybe six years ago,” you answer. “But if I treat it like a game to make you make noise for me…”  
  
“I would think you would want me to shut up,” he answers, even as he ruts into your hand. “Most people do, eventually.”  
  
The thread of uncertainty in his voice, sudden and unexpected, makes you feel stern and full of love, all at once. You look up at him, at the way his eyes are catching the light, and pitch your voice low. “You will find that I am not most people, I think. Especially with regard to you.” If you try hard enough, maybe he will listen to you. You need him to know.   
  
He’s looking back at you, _seeing_ _you_ , just as much as you think you’re seeing him in those shining depths, and —  
  
“Fuck,” he chokes out, dropping his head to your shoulder instead. His hips are still moving, matching the pace of your hand, and —  
  
“I will take care of you as much as you ever let me, Jaskier,” you say into his ear, kissing the bolt of his jaw. It’s like something has come over you. “I know you,” you insist, curling your fingers a little tighter around him. He’s wet, leaking onto your fingers and down onto your stomach, and —

“Stop,” he whispers, hand curling around yours on his cock. You pull away, though your nerves twist at the idea that — you’ve gone too far.  
  
There’s an ‘I’m sorry,’ springing to your lips, but he speaks again before you can get it together to say it. “Let me take care of you, instead?”  
  
“Take care of me? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?” He makes an amused sound and kisses your shoulder, props himself back up on his elbow to look at you.  
  
“Not like this,” he says, face intense or possibly just intent. “And I... need some time to calm down.”  
  
“Did I — did I upset you?” you ask, worried through and through. Did you go too far?  
  
“Opposite of that,” he says reassuringly. He rubs his nose gently against yours, follows it up with a kiss that sears through you. “I don’t want this to be over too soon.” He grins, almost embarrassed, and that, at least, soothes you. “I believe you requested a ravishing, and I do want to live up to that.”  
  
“Oh, well, if you insist,” you say, smiling despite yourself. Want is still a current underneath your skin, but you were enjoying touching him, too.   
  
“I won’t _insist_ anything, if you don’t want it. If you’ve changed your mind —” You cut him off.  
  
“I haven’t changed my mind. I’ll let you know if I do.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“If you don’t stop asking me, I’ll think you’re the one that wants to stop, not me.” You press your lips to his cheek, trying to calm your heart. Your blood is thrumming, now that you’ve time to notice, and you think it may never stop. “…do you?”  
  
“Oh, absolutely not,” he answers, brings his head up to press your mouths together again. Your hands come up to his sides, curling around his ribs and soft places even though one of them is already sticky, ready to ride out another round of thrilling kissing but —

He doesn’t kiss your mouth for long. He moves to your cheek, your neck, your collarbone. Presses his mouth to the space between your breasts, to the slope of your stomach. You’re tense all over, now, only vaguely aware of his intentions but you are absolutely not going to stop him and —  
  
He touches you, _touches_ _you_ , for the first time with his fingers, and it’s like being struck by lightning. It’s different than any time you’ve ever done it yourself and — well, past experiences don’t bear reliving. He’s gentle but sure, pressing his thumb to the nub of nerves at the core of you even as he slips one finger inside. When had you gotten so wet?  
  
“Gods,” he groans against your thigh, like touching you is something special, and your legs fall open a little further around him. You feel tense and loose all at once, like your body doesn’t know what to do with itself. “Look at how much you want me,” he murmurs, curling that finger inside of you in a way that has your hips jumping off the bed, following his hand. The steady pressure of his thumb doesn’t change except to move in slow circles, and —

“Jaskier,” you say without meaning to. You can’t keep your mouth shut, can’t think about anything else but him. Can’t keep his name off your lips.  
  
He shifts again, pressing firm kisses against your hipbone, across your stomach. His hot breath passes over you, makes his touch twice as potent, and —

“More,” you ask of him, beg of him.

He doesn’t tease you. Just replaces his thumb with his _mouth_ and —

“ _Fuck_ , Jaskier.” The noises you’re making have got to be too much, but you can’t care right now. You think he slides another finger in alongside the first, but the motion of his tongue, the roughness of it against your most sensitive place, is a distraction that can’t be put to words.  
  
His free hand curls around your leg, holding you open, and you fist your own hands in the blankets. It feels too good, feels unreal and just-this-side of too much, and you never want him to stop. You know you’re babbling but you can’t stop that, either, not even sure what you’re saying. All you can focus on is his hand and his mouth and the pleasure —

He’s relentless with it, touching you until your thighs clench of their own free will and you’re seeing stars behind your eyelids, your whole body tightening as if you might be sick but in the best way possible. He doesn’t stop then, either, doesn’t seem bothered by your legs closing up around him, just riding it out with you.  
  
Eventually you loosen up again, letting your legs fall open. You feel shapeless, as if your skeleton has been removed and replaced with water. You feel energized and exhausted all at once, and —  
  
He comes back up to you with little urging, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, his fingers on his own skin. You kiss him with no regard for what his mouth may taste like, but it doesn’t seem much different than before. His lips are damp and warm, and he hums into your mouth when you curl your arms around his back and hold him tight against you once more.

He’s still hard, leaking against your stomach, and —  
  
“You should absolutely have sex with me,” you tell him, curling your leg around his at the ankle.  
  
“I _have_ _been_ having sex with you,” he says, but he pulls back far enough that you can see the bemused look on his face. “You’re —”  
  
“I’m sure,” you cut in, knowing the question on his lips. “I’d rather not die a virgin, considering we’ve come all this way.”  
  
“If you wanted to be defiled so badly, you just had to say so,” he quips, smirking, and you jut your chin out at him.  
  
“I’ve been _begging_ , I don’t know what more you want from me.”  
  
“I… don’t know either,” he admits, overconfident veneer falling away. He rubs his thumb across your cheek, gentle.  
  
“You don’t… have to be afraid. Or nervous, or anything,” you offer him, promise him, turning your head to press a kiss to the palm of his hand.   
  
“It’s _you_. I might always be nervous about this,” he says, turning your head back and leaning in to give you a real, good, kiss. 

When you part again, he leans a little further away, shifting on the mattress. His face turns intent, and he bows his head in what must be concentration on what he’s doing.  
  
This is entirely new territory for you now, in a way every other step so far hasn’t been. You’d done a lot of things in your youth but — not this.  
  
“Can I help?” you ask the top of his head, feeling… kind of useless.   
  
He’s propped up on one arm, and suddenly what must be the head of his cock is sliding across your core. _Up_ and _down_ and _up_ and _down_ , and — “Don’t tease me,” you demand when he continues to carry on, and he breathes a laugh.  
  
“You just make it so easy,” he says, but he stops being a tease and finally presses against your entrance. You’ve heard other girls talk about how it feels like being split open, and you already think they’re more than right. And he’s not even truly inside you yet, just there at the edge — on the precipice of something you can’t come back from.  
  
You suck in a deep breath, holding very still so as not to ruin anything; you’re suddenly worried about pain in a way you haven’t been for any of the other proceedings. 

“You have to relax, darling,” he says, pulling you out of your own mind. He still hasn’t moved, hasn’t pressed in any further, and he’s looking back up at you now. “What’s the matter? Do you want to stop?”  
  
“I thought I told you to stop asking me that,” you say offhandedly, and then — “How much is it going to hurt?”  
  
He makes what you can only call an affronted noise, eyebrows furrowing together again. “Not much, if at all. I’ll go slow, and you’re already very wet for me.” His mouth curls up, briefly, into a devilish smile that sends a current of heat down your spine. “But you’ve got to loosen up, some, or I’m not going to do this.” Not that he can’t, but —  
  
“Won’t?”  
  
“I’m not going to do this if you don’t want it,” he says, smooths his hand up your thigh. “We can stop right here, and everything will be fine. I want you to be comfortable.”  
  
“I couldn’t be _more_ comfortable,” you insist, looking at him plaintively. “I’m just — worried.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” he says, smiling. “Wasn’t that what you were telling me?”  
  
“I can’t stop,” you tell him, meaning it. “I want this. I want you. But I — I can’t stop.”

His face turns pensive, and you watch him think while you try to manage your breathing. Anything to get the knot in your chest to loosen.   
  
“You’re sure?” he asks, and you can’t even be annoyed with him for it, this time.   
  
“I’m sure. I mean it. I’ve been thinking about it for — too long, probably.”  
  
“Do you want me to distract you? Would that help?”  
  
“…can you _do_ that?”  
  
“You will find I can be very distracting, darling,” he says, and his hand leaves your thigh to touch your clit again. The sensitivity you’d felt after your orgasm is gone, and it just feels purely good again.

“Oh,” you sigh, and his mouth finds yours. He nips at your lip, noses against your cheek, _consumes_ _you_.  
  
He keeps touching you, keeps kissing you — you hardly have time or presence of mind to breath. You’re holding on as best you can, responding as best you can, and each time you press back against his thumb you’re pressing back against his cock.  
  
You can’t _forget_ it, can’t not notice it, but you can’t bring yourself to be afraid of pain under the influence of so much pleasure. Your animal brain just wants _more_ , wants _everything_ , and you’re making desperate noises against his mouth as he begins to stretch you open.  
  
You urge him on, trying to pull him closer to you in whatever way you can. A lever has been flipped in your head, and the only thing that matters is him being inside you.  
  
“Jaskier, _Jaskier_ , please,” you say against his lips, closer to a whine than real speech. You have no control over what’s coming out of your mouth. His infernally slow pace seems to quicken but not by much, and it feels like a lifetime before he’s sheathed fully inside of you, hips to hips.

Your head drops against the pillow as you try to breathe, full to the brim and almost choking on it. His mouth touches down on your throat, laving over that spot near your ear that he likes so much. You’re sweating and nothing has even happened, yet.

“Are you alright?” he asks after a moment, after you’ve caught your breath, and you suck in one last lungful of air for good measure.

“More than alright,” you tell him, and you mean it, no matter how strange you know your voice sounds. His hand on you resumes its gentle ministration, then, and you feel it acutely as he pulls out. It’s not fast by any means, but it’s fast _er_ , and you sigh not unhappily.

“Are you going to fuck me now?” you ask, giving him the coyest smile you can even as he presses back into you. It feels like he’s touching every nerve you have; it feels like you’re going to shake out of your skin even though you aren’t shaking at all yet.

“I’m going to take care of you,” is what he says, and — oh, your heart shouldn’t be clenching like this when you’re on the path to another orgasm, not like this.

“I trust your judgment,” you answer, swallowing down around the pressure in your chest, and he nods. Smiles down at you.

“Good. Finally,” he says, but it’s not a recrimination. “You’ve opened up so nicely for me,” he murmurs, dragging out of you at a snail’s pace and pushing back inside.

“I want you,” you tell him, an explanation or just your heart on your tongue, and his eyes are glimmering in the candlelight when you bring yourself to look up from where he’s caught his lip between his teeth. “I think I’ve wanted you all the time,” you insist when he doesn’t reply, and he gives you his attention then, looking away from the juncture of your bodies. 

“You think so?” he says, brackets both elbows on either side you to lean in _close_. His hips don’t stop moving, possibly even speed up, and you don’t even really miss his hand on you.

“I think so,” you say, trying to keep your breathing steady. “Wanted you ever since I knew I could,” you continue. “Wanted anything you would ever give me.”

“I’d give you the world if you asked for it,” he says, presses an open-mouthed kiss against your cheek. “But for now, let me give you another orgasm, hm?”

“So confident,” you retort, but it comes out breathlessly as he speeds up, folds you up so the angle of his cock inside you has changed, and —

Reaching your climax with him inside you, with him over you and around you and so deep inside you that you can taste him — it’s different.

You hold on to him like you might fly away if you don’t, unable to do anything else but reflexively curl up as much as you can. He holds you open with his body, groans as you come, but you miss some of the detail in the white rush of pleasure that sweeps over your mind.

When you come back to yourself, a minute or a year later, he’s slipped out of you but hasn’t moved away. He’s pressed against your side the way that you sleep against him sometimes, one arm stretched across your chest and his cheek on your shoulder. His panted breaths are hot on your cooling skin.

“Was that —” you start, bite your lips, start again. “That was good,” you breathe, turning to really look at him. His eyes are closed and he looks at peace, but you know from the curl of his mouth that he hasn’t fallen asleep so quickly.

“Only good?” he asks, cracking one eye open.

“Maybe we should give it another go,” you suggest, just for his reaction. “Later. After some sleep.”

“I love the way you think.”

You’re a mess, sweaty, and hot, and you know that his come is leaking out of you, but — the sheets are going to be a lost cause anyway. There’s nowhere else you want to be, and you just don’t have the energy to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for the kudos! I appreciate it greatly and it's a joy to see that other people are reading this.
> 
> Please let me know if you see any SPAG or formatting errors -- me rereading it three times is the closest this gets to beta'd. 
> 
> Next chapter is the last one! Hopefully it will come a little more quickly; it cannot possibly be more difficult to revise. 
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://ragequilt.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/ahrhi_169)!


	6. more about life, about love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting for the other shoe to drop has you tense as spring draws ever nearer. Sometimes you must weather a storm to find peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the beginning of the end! of this work, anyway. it's so strange to be here, but -- well, i'll put my rambling in the end notes. 
> 
> this mess IS unbetad (and written between the tender hours of 1:30 and 4am) so all mistakes are on me!
> 
> chapter title from "typewriter series 2845" by Tyler Knott Gregson (his poetry has inadvertently become inspiration for so much)  
> 'More about life,  
> about love, about what  
> in it to be part  
> of something  
> so big. More,  
> more from you,   
> than you from  
> me.'

Time passes, because that is the nature of it. You have enjoyed — in more ways than one, if you are to be crude — the last few weeks with Jaskier. In so many ways, your mind is more at ease than ever, now that things have been resolved. Now that the truth is out. You almost can’t believe you were ever so worried about — any of it, but perhaps that’s a consequence of hindsight.

Of course, there are new things to be bothered about, instead. There isn’t much time left with him before he’ll have to be on the road again. You’ve tried your best to savor every moment, but there’s still something bitter that comes to your tongue every time you think about it — whether too hard or only in passing.

You’re half-sure, or more, that you’re in love with him. He’d joked, before… everything, that someone had caught your heart, and it is the thinking of him being absent that has truly cemented that for you, right along with every considerate thing he’s done or kiss he’s given you.

You can’t possibly ask him not to go. You know better than to expect anything other than the obvious answer, and besides that, you could never cage him in such a way. That’s not love, is it? To be so selfish?

Instead, you have been making the most of the time you do have with him, in a desperate bid to keep every moment. You turn up later and later to work every day, dragging out mornings spent in bed or pressed together during breakfast. You stay up late to wait for him to come home, cursing every hour that he’s absent and you aren’t with him, but —

“Where are you playing tonight?” you ask, breaking the quiet that has blanketed the room. You’ve finished your breakfast and he is half-eating, half-writing something down in his notebook. Some thing will always stay the same, apparently.

“What was that?” He looks up at you, giving you his undivided attention, and your heart swells just from the look on his face. You can’t help but smile just for looking back at him, at the ink stains on his fingers and the cheese he’s been holding for several minutes, distracted.

“I was wondering where you were playing tonight.”

“Oh, I’m at The Seven Stars,” he answers, and you watch him think about your question in real time. “Why? Would you like to come see me perform?”

“I always want to see you perform,” you tell him honestly. “But not usually with the public.”

“Hmm. What’s different tonight, then?” You appreciate, amongst other things, that he doesn’t mince words so much with you as others do. If he is curious, he says so. Not everyone is the same.

Despite the fact that you don’t really want to share your motivation. Talking about it hurts.

“I — well. Spring is almost here,” you say, dropping your gaze to your hands. Maybe it will be easier if you’re not looking at his soft face. You can hate it all you want, but not talking about it won’t keep it from happening.”

“We still have a few weeks,” he says, voice — unreadable, for once. You don’t much like that, either.

“Two weeks at best, if you’re supposed to be halfway to Kaedwen when you meet your witcher again,” you tell your hands. You’ve looked at too many maps and asked too many pointed questions to think it is any other way. He still sounds awed that the man agreed to meet up with him regardless, and you don’t want to ruin that by — getting in the way. You know his relationship with the witcher is special to him.

“Are you so eager to get rid of me?” is what he says, and —

“That is the exact opposite of what I’m feeling,” you say, looking up at him in surprise. Doesn’t he know?

“What? Why is that?”

“What do you mean, ‘why?’ Isn’t it obvious?” There’s insecurity twisting in your chest now, as if maybe — well, maybe you’re not really on the same page. Two weeks of sex — and you imagine it has been particularly emotional sex, but still — does not make a relationship. Does not make you mean something to him like he means to you.

You feel yourself going red in the face, and something about even this simple conflict has your hands shaking.

“Darling,” he starts, but you get to your feet. You don’t want to sit here and get gently turned down — because he _would_ be gentle, you know it, and that makes it worse.

“I need to get ready to go,” you work out, and run away to the bedroom to change. That he lets you go, lets you shut the door and change in silence — it’s telling.

That he sits in the chair with his notebook on his knee and just _watches_ you leave, well. That says some other things.

You spend all day tied up in knots, and you get hardly anything done. You wish you could turn back time to that stupid party, or turn it back two weeks further and undo all of your feelings. Love was nice, but this new gutted feeling is something you could do without.

You put off going home as long as you can. Technically no one cares when you come or go, really, just that your duties are tended to, which means no one cares if you stay late. You’re not eager to be back in the den of debauchery you’ve turned your quarters into over the last fortnight. You don’t want to sit on the couch and think about when you got to put your mouth on him for the first time, or bring in a bath and think about when he’d let you ride him in the water, or lie in bed and think about when he’d bound your hands above your head and brought you to the edge until you begged for mercy.

You definitely don’t want to go home and think about every instance you’ve had wherein you thought your silly schoolgirl feelings might have been returned. You should have known better, really, to think that a man as worldly and experienced and interesting as Jaskier would ever be anything but momentarily taken by you. You’ve known from the beginning that him staying in your quarters with you — and the camaraderie, the friendship that has come with it — was just a matter of convenience for him. If you’d turned him away, he would have gone to stay with Shani, or with any of his dozens of other acquaintances.

You should have managed your feelings — even those of friendship — from the beginning. You are not easy to get along with or, even, to like, but Jaskier is — hardy, in ways that many other people are not. He can fake so many things if it eases the way through a difficult time. You’d seen him do it when you were students, putting on a facade until whoever he has to win the favor of has gone away.

You don’t even really think it’s particularly dishonest of him. He hasn’t been cruel to you, not really. It’s your own fault that you’ve gone and gotten too attached. You can’t blame him for wanting a warm place to sleep for the winter. The only thing he’s definitely lied about is that you were his first choice, all those months ago. Maybe Shani turned him down, first, and that’s why their relationship is a bit strange to watch in action. Or perhaps he tried to stay with someone else that you don’t even know — he has so many connections.

This is all your fault.

Eventually, you’ve run out of blame for yourself and things to do in the library and you do, actually, have to go home. It’s so late that even you are hungry, having skipped lunch and worried away most of your breakfast pacing.

The walk goes by more quickly than you want it to, even though you stop to see the matron and even go to the commissary for a late dinner. If he has put together lunch for you because he knows you didn’t have one, you don’t think you can bear to eat it.

It takes a little bit of juggling to get the key in the door, but you do manage it. In fact, you’re doing quite well, at least until the knob twists in your hand and it opens without your doing.

You’re a bit alarmed and a fair bit off balance, nearly tripping into the room, and you find Jaskier on the other side, looking apologetic and a bit confused himself.

“Welcome home,” he says, putting a steadying hand on your shoulder. Your stomach aches at the way he says it. He takes the tray from your hand and lets you stand on your own power, but he stays close. He’s watching you.

“…thanks?” There is nothing normal about this. Has he given up the facade?

“I sort of expected you to get home earlier than this, I’ll be honest,” he says, stepping backwards toward the couch and the table and the fire. You push the door shut behind you and remove your shoes and cloak before following him, feeling off-kilter yourself.

“I… usually am?” You look around, wishing you had a clock in this room. Is it so late already? “Did I lose track of time that badly? For you to be back already?” Perhaps you should just pretend like everything is normal. It’s not as if you’re going to kick him out for not being in love with you, so you should just play nice until everything is over.

“Oh, no,” he says, setting the tray down and coming back to you, standing just in front of you. “I didn’t perform tonight.”

“But you said you were going to the — Seven Stars, wasn’t it?”

He hums an affirmative even as he reaches out to take your hands. It makes your gut twist, knowing it doesn’t mean what you want it to mean. He’s always been physically affectionate, with everyone. “I was supposed to, yes, but the innkeep was understanding when I informed her of my circumstances.” That sounds a bit like a terrible euphemism.

“Is that a turn of phrase?”

He blinks at you. “What? No, I mean I —” He sighs, squeezes your hands. “I told her that my lady love was feeling neglected, and I couldn’t in good conscience be away from her tonight.”

So he’d spent the day with his lover and come home early? That sounds even more unlikely, but it makes its own sort of distant sense.

“Jaskier, I —” You pull your hands away, stepping back. You should leave again. You can stay the night at the library, you’ve done it before. “I know you don’t mean any harm, and I know you don’t feel the same, but I — I won’t play second fiddle for you. I can’t bear to.” It takes so much effort to keep your face straight. Fuck.

It’s worse when he follows you, the confused crease in his brow furrowing. “I think you’re confused,” is what he says, but he doesn’t reach for you again. “There is no other woman in my life like you,” he says.

Part of you wants to take it how it sounds, but the rest of you is still worked raw from your long day of agonizing.

“I know I’m not _normal_ , Jaskier, you don’t have to twist the knife. Gods, it’s not like I’ll force you to stay if you want to go. You don’t owe me anything.”

“What? I — that’s not the meaning of that sentence at all.” Maybe you are twisting his words. You’ve always been a nightmare to argue with. More than once you’ve come out on the other side of a fight — mostly with Eryk, looking back on your memories — feeling like you’d been completely unhinged. This time, though, you feel quite right in it.

“Don’t bother,” you tell him. “Nothing has to change. Just — give me tonight to get over it, and we can go back to normal in the morning.”

“ _What_?” His voice goes high, disbelieving, and then he’s rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Darling, I—”

“Please don’t call me that,” you tell him, shaking on the inside. You can’t bear to hear it. “Not tonight.”

“Fine,” he sighs, and rubs his face with both hands. “Will you listen to me, now? And then I — I’ll give you your space.”

You watch him, watching you, and you heave a sigh from the bottom of your lungs. You brace yourself as much as you can, and you nod.

“Thank you. I — I don’t even know what we’re arguing about, honestly.” For starting lines, it’s not a good one, the sharp part of you thinks. You keep your mouth shut. “I wish I could know what you’re thinking, because — nothing makes sense. I can guess why you were upset this morning, but…”

He sighs again, takes a half-step back to sit against the arm of the couch.

“I can’t believe you think so little of me to believe I have another lover more important than you,” is what he eventually says, and —

“It’s not a matter of thinking poorly of you,” you say. You curl your hands together behind your back so he can’t see you fidget. You need to hold on to your nerves.

“Then what could it possibly be?”

“It only makes sense,” you say, looking anywhere but at his eyes. His forehead, his shoulder.

“Pretend it doesn’t. Please.”

“I don’t — Ugh.” You shake your head, trying to put the words together so that they might make sense. “I incorrectly assumed your feelings, and have felt too much in turn. Of course you would have another lover. You are a worldly, experienced man, and I cannot keep your interest forever. I don’t have anything to offer.” Your nails are biting into the skin of your hand. “I had hoped this would last until spring, at least, but…” You shrug it off, as best you can. “I can’t fault you.”

“What feelings did you assume I had, then? Or what are you feeling that you think is too much?” You are trying to ignore the magnetism of his eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” You won’t speak of love to him, not now and not like this, for sure.

He’s just _looking_ at you, and you take a steadying breath through your nose. “I think you have misjudged me,” is what he eventually says. “Or that I have done a poor job of showing you how I feel.”

“No, I think you’ve shown me more than enough,” you say, hating the way your voice is tight.

“I care about you far too much to take another lover and hurt your heart in such a way,” he says, and you blink at him.

“I know you’re worried about my opinion of you,” you say, thinking unfortunately back to — to when he’d said as much, weeks ago. “I won’t think less of you. It’s fine, Jaskier.”

He’s fidgeting, now, going a bit red, and —

“Are you listening to me, or just hearing what you want to hear?” He’s never snapped at you before, and you recoil. It hurts much worse than anything you’ve done to yourself today.

You steel yourself again, and you hold your head high, and you force the wetness in your eyes to stay there. “Tell me, then. I’ll listen.”

“Can I — fuck,” he says, rubs his face. He reaches out toward you, and you let him take your hand. “I didn’t want to tell you this like this,” he mutters, barely audible through the heavy air. “You will be important to me for all of my life,” he says, and it is so strange to hear it that you have to play it back in your mind. “I will care about you if I do not see you again for a year, or ten years, or twenty. I love people easily, I think you know that,” he admits. Takes a breath. “But this is a different feeling, borne of different roots, and even though I cannot offer you anything that a woman may want, I am in love with you.”

You feel rocked, like the earth had shifted beneath your feet. Your traitorous mess of a heart leaps.

“You mean that,” you say, looking at his eyes for the first time in too long.

“Of course I mean that. And perhaps it is selfish of me to say so, when I do have to go in the spring,” he admits. “But I cannot bear the sight of you so heartbroken. There is nothing you can feel for me that I am not feeling in turn. You cannot be too much.”

Your lip is wobbling against your better efforts. “I don’t know what to say,” you eventually whisper, throat sore with the tears pooling behind your eyes still.

“Tell me that you believe me? I can’t offer you anything other than my love, but I do offer it.”

You take the step it takes to meet him, standing toe to toe with him. It’s strange to be the taller one. “I believe you,” you say, repeating him. It’s true. You touch his face. “And your love is worth far more than you think it is.”

* * *

You may have made up and settled in on the couch, eventually, but there are some things you can’t get out of your mind. “Why do you think you have nothing to offer me?” you ask, changing your tune from the small-talk that has filled the air for the last little while. It’s been a reprieve from the heavy topic of your argument, but —

“I just don’t,” he says, shrugs. “I mean — there’s no world where I would go back to Lettenhove, and settling down has never been too much in the plan for me. I get so stagnant without a sense of adventure.” He says it lightly, but you know he is serious. You can’t blame him about not wanting to take up the mantle of his family estate — not like you want yours, either, after all.

“And if I wasn’t to ask you to settle down?”

“What do you mean?”

“Even if we ignore the far flung future, Jaskier, I know you are very happy to follow your witcher to the edges of the world.” He huffs a laugh at your reference to their meeting, and you smile a satisfied smile against his chest. “I will miss you when you are gone whether you want me to or not, you know. But I could never ask you to stay.”

“And what would you do, hm? Sit around and wait for me? That’s not fair to ask of you. I told you it was selfish of me.”

“Oh yes, because there are so many other people I would love to be with instead,” you say dryly, and he snorts.

“You make it sound very silly when you put it that way.”

“Jaskier, even when we were students I cared about you. We picked our friendship up like nothing changed when you turned up on my doorstep months ago. Why could we not do the same thing with our relationship?”

“Hmm.”

You bite your lip, thinking — “Well, unless you don’t want to. To do either of those things. I wouldn’t blame you, after all. I can take a rejection.”

He puts a finger to your mouth, which shushes you rather well, and presses a kiss to the crown of your head. “I wasn’t going to say any of those things. Don’t — worry so much, okay? I know it’s easier said than done.” You hum your agreement. Much more easily said. “There’s nothing about that that I don’t want for myself, I think. Except it does feel very selfish.”

“Be selfish for once, then,” you say against his finger. “You are always so good to me. And besides, even — even then, I wouldn’t ask you to stay celibate on the road, you know. I don’t want to shackle you in any way.”

“You would — not take issue with me bedding others?” There’s surprise in his voice. You wish you could see his face, but you are too comfortable to move.

“Why would I? If you mean to return to me, I trust that. And I trust you to be safe.” Though… “Though I would ask that you perhaps stop sleeping with those that are spoken for. For your own health.” He chuckles at that, and you remember the way he’d burst through the door all those weeks ago, after being run out of that woman’s home. You never put her name to memory and you’re snidely happy to keep it that way. “Honestly, my biggest worry is for your safety.”

“What do you mean? I’ve only ever been beaten up a little, really, by those jealous lovers.”

You poke your finger into the center of his palm, where his hand seems to be waiting to playfully shush you again. “Not what I meant, but — what if one day, someone gets too angry? Goes too far? They could kill you.” Your heart aches to even say the words. None of this is something you want to really think about, but —

“Geralt has gotten me out of plenty of scrapes before. And when I do stay in some noble’s court, I do know how to be good.” He laughs, then, at himself. “I don’t know why I’m arguing this. It is no hardship to me to be discerning.” You smile, briefly, and press the rest of your hand against his until your fingers are folded together.

“I am glad you could see reason,” you tease, and he squeezes your hand. “But I mean — your travels, innately, are dangerous.” He opens his mouth, you can hear it, and you bluster on. You’re finding the words as fast as you say them. “I would never begrudge you the adventure you want. And I know how safe you feel with your witcher — it’s obvious in the way you talk about him. And a certain amount of danger, I have come to understand, is necessary. I wouldn’t ask you to give up your dreams.”

“But I should cut out unnecessary danger,” he murmurs, and you nod.

“I would appreciate it, along with everyone else that loves you.”

“A short list, but it makes you all the more important for it,” he says. Fans don’t count, you know that. It’s not the same.

“I don’t know… I haven’t met him, but I think you might win over your witcher someday,” you tease, smiling. He is so loved, and not just by you. And not just by the people that come to watch him perform, either.

“I — darling, you don’t have to worry about Geralt. He won’t ever return my feelings. I promise he is no threat to you.”

“Not quite what I meant,” you say, and you lean up to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “I wouldn’t mind if he did grow to love you, and you to love him in return. Maybe I’m assuming too much to be saying that. But — he brings out a joy in you, when you talk about him. Did you know?”

He makes a strained little noise, shifts underneath you. You press more closely against his side. “Am I so obvious?”

“To me, you are. But from the way you describe him, I could never blame you. You like to see the best in terrible people.”

“I will not sit idly by and let you call yourself terrible, darling,” he says, and suddenly he’s moving with intent —

You end up on your back on the couch, nose to nose with him and covered with his body. Oh, you love this.

“You are trying very hard to interrupt my serious conversation,” you tell him, pecking him on the mouth afterward to soften it.

“If we carry on, I’m worried the weight of it will crush us both,” he teases, presses his body more firmly against yours. Oh, he knows you’re weak to that.

“Then I suppose we can take a recreational break,” you say. “What do you want to do? I can get the cards,” you return, and he snorts.

“I’ve got some ideas,” he says, and when his mouth latches to your neck, conversation falls away all together.

Later, you make it to the bed. Your clothes are a mess in the den and you’ll have to clean up tomorrow, but you don’t care to leave it for tonight. Not after — not after that, anyway. On still wobbly legs you make your way to the bedroom and crawl beneath the blankets, followed shortly by the love of your life. There’s one lit candle on his nightstand, just enough to see his face, and you wonder if he can see the hearts in your eyes when he follows you in.

You press together in the way you’ve gotten accustomed to — your body against his side, one leg thrown over his. His arm is around your back, and your fingers get to run through the hair on his chest at least until it starts to tickle him. You love his body in new ways you have discovered every day.

He presses a kiss to your forehead once you’re both settled in, and then —

“You know I can’t promise to return at the beginning of winter, either,” he says, and your brain circles for a moment trying to figure out what he means. The last thing you’d said had been — meaningless flirting fluff, stuck together on the couch.

“What?” you eventually give in and ask, and he laughs.

“I must have turned your brain to putty for you to have forgotten. Our serious conversation, remember?” He squeezes you briefly against his side.

“Several orgasms will do that to a person, thank you,” you huff, scratching a little harder. “And — I would only ask that you return when you can. When you want to. I don’t want you to resent me.”

“I could never,” he insists. You… almost believe him. More than almost. “Just that things may not always work out so smoothly as they did this year.”

“Oh yes, this was all very smooth,” you jokingly agree, just to make him laugh. “Don’t worry about it so much. I will take you as you are, any time. Beginning of winter, end of spring, height of summer — I will always have a place for you. Bring your witcher, if you come through for a ‘contract.’ I don’t care. I just want to see you however I can.”

“Love, I —” You can feel him thinking over his words. “What have I done to deserve you?”

“Lived and breathed, I think,” you say, coy, and you are quite tired of being so serious, now, yourself. It is far easier to straddle his hips and kiss him into silence.

Spring will come, because of course it will. It will be hard to watch him go, because of course it will. But you trust Jaskier in every way that matters, and that is what counts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, seriously -- how are we at the end? how have we made it here?  
> as a human being i have never finished a multichapter WIP in my life, but there is something about this that i have just -- not been able to walk away from. i won't look at it too hard, or i might lose it, but it is the truth.
> 
> if you would like more awkward and earnest jaskier/reader sex (especially in this universe), please check out [blooming amongst the snow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24092260) which takes place in the time between chapter 5 and 6 particularly, but I imagine will grow beyond that scope. i don't like to draw too firm of a line with things like that. 
> 
> our next experience will either be this story (in admittedly abbreviated form) from Jaskier's POV -- I am yearning to explore his thoughts -- or it'll be the more legitimate sequel to this. I won't spoil anything about the contents of that one, though. 
> 
> this story has meant a lot to me to write it, and if it has meant something to you to read it, I would love to hear about it. drop a comment, leave a kudo, come scream in my askbox on tumblr -- I find joy when others find joy. 
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://ragequilt.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/ahrhi_169)!


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